Pakistan bombings kill 18 as spy agency hit

A similar bombing killed eight people in another northwest town, the latest in a spate of attacks as 30,000 troops press their most ambitious assault yet against Taliban militants in their mountain strongholds on the Afghan border.

The attack devastated the three-storey provincial headquarters in the city of Peshawar of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which is heavily involved in Pakistan's anti-terror fight, destroying more than half of the building.

The bomber, driving a mini-truck loaded with explosives, raced down the road towards the ISI building shortly before sunrise, provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.

Soldiers opened fire after they spotted the truck, but the bomber ploughed into a steel barrier and blew up the vehicle outside the main gate of the ISI compound, wreaking massive destruction, he added.

More than half of the U-shaped building was destroyed by the force of the blast which devastated its outer wall, a front portion and a column, and scattered bodies among the rubble, an AFP reporter said.

Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's tribal belt infested with al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, has increasingly become the favoured target for attacks by militants, particularly since the army launched its offensive in October.

Absar Ahmed, a 25-year-old taxi driver, said he was driving near the ISI building when he heard gunshots followed by a huge blast.

“My car was hurled on to the pavement by the force of the blast and my head banged into the windscreen. When I looked back to check on my passenger there was smoke all over,” Ahmed told AFP in hospital.

The attacks coincided with a visit by U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones who held talks with Pakistan's army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani.

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