Pakistan buries victims of blasts

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/7291444.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Funerals have been held in Pakistan for the victims of two bomb attacks on Tuesday in the eastern city of Lahore.

At least 24 people were killed and 100 injured in the attacks by bombers using vehicles packed with explosives.

Most of the victims were killed in the attack on a building housing a federal police agency. The other blast, in a suburb, killed three people.

Meanwhile, two police officers and at least two suspected militants have died in incidents in the district of Swat.

The police officers were killed while trying to defuse a roadside bomb near the village of Charbagh, officials said.

The two suspected militants were killed in an explosion at a property in the Kabal district. It is unclear what caused the blast.

The Swat region's beautiful scenery and ancient relics were once a major draw for tourists.

Recently however, the area has seen intense fighting between government forces and local militants keen to impose Islamic laws.

Surveillance footage

At least 12 of those killed in Tuesday's attacks in Lahore were police officers working at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building.

Security was tight for their funerals, attended by senior government and police officials.

A Lahore police chief, Malik Mohammed Iqbal, told the Associated Press news agency the blast at the building was caused by an explosives-packed vehicle that had burst through a fence.

Private TV station Aaj has shown grainy surveillance camera footage of a small pick-up truck running over a guard and breaking through a gate.

Much of the building was destroyed in the blast.

A second, near-simultaneous blast hit an office in a residential suburb of Lahore several miles away, killing three people, including two children.

Sustained campaign

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of suicide bombings in the past year, most against security targets, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

It is rare for groups to claim responsibility for the attacks, but they are usually blamed on pro-Taleban militants and on elements of now banned jihadist groups nurtured by the intelligence agencies.

They are believed to be in response to army and police operations against the militants.

Most take place in the north-west of the country near the Afghan border, but many of Pakistan's major cities have also been hit.

Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was killed by a suicide bomber in Rawalpindi in December.

Until recently Lahore had escaped most of the violence, but there have been three attacks there now in the last two months.

Four people died in last week's attack on the naval college. And in January, 19 people were killed in a suicide bombing near the High Court.

More than 500 people have been killed in the country since the beginning of the year in a campaign of attacks and bombings blamed on Islamist militants.