Double bombing kills 13 at Pakistan police station

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Three suicide attackers, including a woman, attacked a police station in northwestern Pakistan, killing 13 people Friday while army airstrikes killed a dozen suspected militants in a Taliban stronghold ahead of an expected ground offensive.

The bombing in Peshawar city was the latest in a surge of terrorist attacks over the last 11 days that has killed more than 150 people and underscored the power of the Taliban, who have warned the army against launching any operation in the militants' base close to the Afghan border.

In Islamabad, the army chief met with the prime minister and other political leaders for talks that included plans for an offensive in South Waziristan, a military and an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The bombings targeted a heavily fortified police station in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest.

One attacker drove a car filled with explosives to the main gate of the police station, as a motorcycle carrying a man and a woman pulled up behind it, Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.

The woman jumped off and ran toward a nearby housing complex where army officers live, while the man smashed the motorcycle into the car, which exploded into a huge fireball, he said. Police shot at the woman, who detonated explosives she was wearing.

The blast destroyed part of the police station and a mosque next to it.

The blast killed 13 people, including three police officers, two women and two children, said Gul Khan, a local police official. Another 15 people were wounded.

Insurgents have sent attackers wearing military uniforms to bypass security to carry out some of their recent raids. But the use of a female suicide bomber is extremely rare here and could signal a new tactic by the extremists.

In December 2007, what was believed to be the country's first female bomber blew herself up near a Christian school while apparently aiming for a military post in Peshawar. There were no other casualties.

The attack came a day after militants launched coordinated attacks on three law enforcement compounds in the country's second-largest city of Lahore, killing 19 people as well as the nine attackers. Also Thursday, a car bomb in Peshawar killed a small child at a housing complex for government employees.