Suicide attack kills 20 in NW Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bomb attack killed at least 20 people in a crowded market place in a northwestern Pakistani city on Tuesday, a senior police officer said.

Police guard beside a destroyed car in Charsadda, a city some 30 kilometers north of Peshawar of Pakistan, Nov. 10, 2009. A suicide car bomb attack killed at least 20 people in a crowded market place in Charsadda on Tuesday.(Xinhua/Umar Qayyum)

District Police Office Riaz Khan said that over 40 other people were also injured in the attack in Charsadda, a city some 30 kilometers north of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

Khan said he and a group of policemen escaped the attack as it occurred hardly a few minutes after they passed by at 4:30 p.m. local time (1130 GMT).

The police chief said that he and the local police recently received threats. He said that no policeman died or was injured in the attack and all casualties are civilians.

People shifted the injured to the nearby District Headquarters Hospital in private cars. Several injured were shifted to Peshawar, doctors said. Two injured are in critical condition, they said.

Over 50 shops and many vehicles in the market were also destroyed in the blast at Farooq Azam Chowk in the city's center at 4:40 p.m., local TV reports said.

Witnesses said that the blast ripped through a crowded square at a time when a large number of people were busy with shopping. The square also crowded as people belong to other areas board passenger vans from the same place.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast. But the Pakistani government blames Taliban militants for such attacks.