PESHAWAR: A succession of blasts rocked the NWFP on Thursday, killing 13 people, including five policemen, and injuring over 90 others.

Three blasts, one of them a suicide attack targeting a police post, took place in Peshawar and one suicide bombing at a security checkpost in Dera Ismail Khan.
 
The first blast in Peshawar at about 6.30pm ripped through the Kabari bazaar dealing in second-hand electronic items. A bomb planted in a bike outside an ice-cream shop in the same area went off two minutes later.

Both the blasts took place in the city’s congested historic Qissa Khwani bazaar. Additional Inspector General Shafqat Mehmood told reporters that the explosives, each weighing 4-5kg, were time devices.
 
The first explosion set off fire in shops in a narrow lane jostled by electronic and music stores. Twenty shops were gutted.

Two militants who fled towards a nearby hotel after lobbing a hand-grenade were killed in an exchange of fire with police. Their bodies were taken to a mortuary for investigation. Two militants were arrested.

Five civilians were killed and over 70 injured. As security forces grappled with the mayhem caused by the twin-bombings, a suicide-bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a police mobile in Sra Khora on Kohat road in the outskirts of Peshawar, killing three policemen, including an assistant sub-inspector, and wounding three others.

The Bomb Disposal Squad official said that 160kg of explosives had been used in the attack.

Soon after the attack, police gunned down a suicide-bomber trying to approach a security checkpost set up to protect the area and ward against another possible attack.

‘Our men warned the young man approaching the post to stop and when he did not, they opened fire, killing him on the spot,’ city police chief Safwat Ghayyur told Dawn. He said three suspects had been arrested.

A senior police officer said that intelligence agencies had picked up a militant radio-chatter in the outskirts of Peshawar on information about possible terrorist attacks in major cities of the country. ‘We are on the look and have stepped up vigil,’ he said.

He warned that the militants fleeing the operation in Swat and adjoining areas could attack more cities and towns.