Hours later, a suicide bomber targeted a police recruiting center in the city of Dera Ismail Khan, in the same province, killing 26, many of them young men taking a police entrance exam.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said the two attacks could be militants' response to a military assault on a mosque in Islamabad several days earlier. Some 75 militants were killed on July 10 when commandos stormed the fortified Lal Masjid (Red Mosque).
Also on July 15, pro-Taliban militants in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border called off a 10-month peace deal with the government. They accuse Islamabad of violating the agreement by deploying more troops in the region.
On July 14, a suicide attack on a military convoy in North Waziristan killed 24 soldiers.
Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org
