11th Nov. 2009 CHARSADDA, PAKISTAN:

A suicide car blast in a crowded market street in Pakistan on Tuesday, killed 30 people in the third terrorist attack. The United States of America has put Pakistan on the forefront of its fighting against al-Qaida and has been gradually more worried by worsening safety measures in the nation where attacks and bombings have killed about 2,500 people in 28 months. The blast spoiled signboards and at least six vehicles, including two buses, during the afternoon shopping rush in the town’s most popular market. North West Frontier Province (NWFP) information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. Seven children and three women were among the dead. The wounded were being treated in Charsadda and the northwestern capital Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal belt that US officials call the most dangerous place on earth and a chief al-Qaida sanctuary.

Charsadda is the ideological centre of the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which is currently governing NWFP, and the town has been struck by a series of deadly bomb and suicide attacks targeting ANP leaders. Pakistan’s military meanwhile said troops had uncovered a Taliban jail, destroying a network of rebel caves, bunkers and towers, and killing nine militants.

No details from the army can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers barred from the area. The military says about 495 militants have been killed and 46 soldiers have died, a fraction of the number lost in past campaigns that ended in controversial peace deals that critics said allowed the militants to re-arm.