Bombs kill 43 as British PM begins Pakistan visit

Islamabad (AFP): At least 43 people were killed and over 100 injured in Pakistan on Sunday in different attacks, including a powerful bomb blast that targeted a passing convoy of security forces. In the first incident, at least 17 people, including four children, were killed and nearly 50 injured when the powerful remote-controlled bomb targeted a passing convoy of security forces near a busy market in Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. The blast, believed to be an IED explosion, targeted the convoy of Frontier Corps on their way to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's capital Peshawar from Kohat district but narrowly missed it. The attack happened not far from the semi-autonomous tribal belt where Taliban and al Qaeda-linked groups have bases, as British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the capital Islamabad. In another attack, two bomb blasts near a Shiite mosque killed at least 19 people in southwestern city of Quetta. The suspected suicide bombing near Abu Talib Imambargah at the Shiite-majority Hazara town also injured over 60 persons. In South Waziristan, a rocket attack killed four people and injured 15 others while in the North Waziristan tribal region, a roadside bomb killed three. Cameron said the battle against terrorism needed "a tough and uncompromising security response" as well as investment in education and tackling poverty. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack. "Pakistan has suffered the most in terms of human and financial losses."