Pakistan Bomb Wounds Seven at Grocery Shop

Seven people were wounded when a small bomb fitted with a timer exploded outside a grocery shop in a busy market in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, police said.

The bomb was packed in an oil canister and placed outside the shop in the city's popular Rampura Market, local police officer Javed Khan said.

"The blast left seven people wounded; one of them seriously," he said, adding that it also damaged two shops and one vehicle parked nearby.

The wounded were laborers or passers-by, the policeman said.

Since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007, more than 4,700 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and al-Qaida-linked networks based in the northwest tribal belt.

The chief of the local bomb disposal squad, Shafqat Malik, said it was a home-made timed device. It carried up to four kilos (nine pounds) of explosives, he said.

The target seemed to be the grocery shop, senior police officer Tahir Ayub told Agence France Presse. "We are investigating why this shop was targeted," he said.

Another bomb went off in the main bazaar of Landi Kotal in the neighboring tribal district of Khyber, which straddles a main NATO supply route from the Arabian Sea into landlocked Afghanistan, local official Syed Ahmed Jan said.

It was a small bomb placed in a rubbish dump near the town's hospital, lightly wounding a tribal police official and a civilian, he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest bombings but Taliban and other Islamist militants more often target government buildings, officials and troops in Pakistan.

Pakistani security forces are pressing an offensive in the Bara district of Khyber against militants led by warlord Mangal Bagh.

Peshawar police chief Imtiaz Altaf said militants have stepped up attacks to avenge the operation.

"This is the militants' reaction to the ongoing operation in Bara. We have beefed up security; therefore, they are targeting civilians because they know it has a greater impact on ordinary people.

"We have reports they are planning more attacks to put the authorities under pressure, but we are alert and have further tightened security," he said.