Police: Bomb kills 20 in northwest Pakistan market

[November 10, 2009]  PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- A suspected car bomb exploded just outside a crowded market in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 20 people and wounding 55, police said.

The bombing in Charsadda city was the third attack in as many days in or close to Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Militants have stepped up attacks in recent weeks in retaliation for an army offensive in a key area along the Afghan border.

The bomb exploded in an intersection just outside the market in Charsadda, located some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Peshawar, destroying shops on both sides of the road and knocking down electrical wires.

The blast wounded 55 people, 10 of them critically, said police official Riaz Khan. Local television showed ambulances ferrying the dead to the hospital along roads littered with debris.

"I had just passed through this place hardly two minutes before the blast. I felt it myself," said Khan. "We got back and saw destruction everywhere."

[Associated Press; By RIAZ KHAN]

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