Pakistan bombings kill 18 as spy agency hit

“Seven military officials and three civilians were martyred and 60 others were injured,” a military statement said.

“Up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of high explosives and mortars were packed into the car bomb,” provincial police chief Malik Naveed told AFP.

Pakistan's powerful and shadowy intelligence agencies have a history of supporting the Islamist groups in a bid to counter rival India, and many in the West suspect its agents of continuing to play a double game.

A second suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a suburban police station in the garrison town of Bannu, southwest of Peshawar, killing seven security personnel and a prisoner, police said.

The most devastating bomb attack in Pakistan in two years killed at least 118 people in a crowded Peshawar market on October 28 as militants put ordinary civilians in the crosshairs of their bloody campaign.

Friday's bombing was the first major attack outside an ISI installation since May, when a suicide attack on a police building in the city of Lahore killed 24 people.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad condemned the “terrorist attacks” and said it honoured “those brave Pakistani military, police and security personnel who are fully engaged in combating these extremists”.

The government blames increasing attacks on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is the target of the ongoing offensive and which wants to avenge the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud by a U.S. missile in August.

The latest attacks came after stiff Taliban resistance killed 17 soldiers Thursday in the military's deadliest day since launching its major offensive in South Waziristan, security officials said.

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