Twin explosions ripped through a market district in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, earlier today, killing at least 34 people and injuring more than 100. The initial bomb went off in a hotel bathroom from a timed device, say police, but the second was detonated by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle. A hotel and six shops were badly damaged. "The first blast was quite small but as people gathered close to the site of the explosion, the second one, which was a real big one, went off," a senior police official told the AFP.
The attacks come just after visits by CIA chief Leon Panetta and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But despite the Pakistani Taliban leading a string of revenge bombings since the killing of Osama bin Laden, they denied responsibility for these attacks. "We did not carry out this attack in Peshawar. It is an attempt by foreign secret agencies who are doing it to malign us," said a Taliban spokesman."We do not target innocent people. Our targets are very clear, we attack security forces, government, and people who are siding with it." (More Pakistan stories.)
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