Female bombers hit Pakistan police at blast site

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_PAKISTAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-11-06-19-56

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- A burqa-clad female suicide bomber attacked police at the scene of an earlier explosion in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, twin strikes that killed five people and broke a relative lull in militant violence in the country.

Islamist extremists with links to al-Qaida have waged a bloody campaign against Pakistan's pro-Western rulers since 2007, targeting police, government and Western targets. Up to 35,000 people have been killed, raising fears abroad over the stability of the nuclear-armed nation.

In the first incident Thursday, a remote-controlled bomb exploded in Peshawar's Lahori Gate area as a police truck carrying constables about to start their shift drove by. Four police officers and a boy passing by were killed, while 22 people were wounded.

An hour later, two women approached police guarding the area. One of the females threw a grenade, then was able to partially detonate her suicide vest, said Shafqat Malik, a police officer with the bomb disposal unit. She appeared to be 16 or 17 years old, he said.