Suicide car bomb kills eight at Pakistan hospital

BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives blew himself up outside the offices of a major Kurdish party in northern Iraq early Wednesday, the deadliest in a wave of morning attacks that killed at least 31 people across the country.

A suicide car bomb attack targeted a Pakistani police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar early Wednesday, killing four police and wounding eight other people, police said.The bomber blew up the vehicle packed with explosives in Tir Bala, on the edge of Pakistan's northwestern capital and close to Mohmand, one of seven districts in the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-infested tribal belt on the Afghan border."The vehicle was coming from the tribal area. It was full of explosives and the suicide attacker was coming from Mohmand," police official Liaqat Ali told AFP by telephone.

A roadside bomb attack targeted a former Pakistan provincial cabinet minister on Sunday, killing him and three other people in the country's restive northwest, police said.The bomb exploded in Bagto village, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the northwestern town of Hangu in an area with a history of sectarian clashes between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shiite Muslims."Four people, including Ghanni-ur Rehman (a former cabinet minister in North West Frontier Province) have died in the attack," Hangu city police chief Abdul Rashid Khan told AFP.

A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives outside a Pakistani hospital on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding around 20 others, a local official said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in the main hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing nine people and triggering panic on the wards.Police said it appeared to be a sectarian attack linked to the shooting of a Shiite banker whose body had been brought to the hospital shortly before the bomb blast.Quetta, capital of insurgency-hit southwestern Baluchistan province, has seen frequent violence pitting militants from the majority Sunni and minority Shiite communities.

A suicide car bomb attack hit a Pakistani police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar before dawn Wednesday, killing four police and wounding 10 people, including a woman, police said.The attacker struck close to the control post in Tir Bala village, on the main road from Pakistan's northwestern capital to Mohmand, one of seven districts in the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-infested tribal belt on the Afghan border."The vehicle was coming from the tribal area. It was full of explosives and the suicide attacker was coming from Mohmand," police official Liaqat Ali said.

A suicide car bomb attack hit a Pakistani police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar before dawn Wednesday, killing four police and wounding 10 people, including a woman, police said.The attacker struck close to the control post in Tir Bala village, on the main road from Pakistan's northwestern capital to Mohmand, one of seven districts in the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-infested tribal belt on the Afghan border."The vehicle was coming from the tribal area. It was full of explosives and the suicide attacker was coming from Mohmand," police official Liaqat Ali said.

A suicide bomber blew up his explosives-filled car Saturday at a police checkpoint in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least seven people, officials said."At least seven people have been killed and more than 20 others wounded," Peshawar police chief Liaqat Ali Khan told AFP."There are two policemen among the dead," Khan said.Peshawar district administration chief Sahibzada Anis said that the bomber detonated when policemen asked him to stop for the search.