Pakistan bombings kill 12

A roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded four in Pakistan's Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border today, a government…

A roadside bomb killed 10 people and wounded four in Pakistan's Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border today, a government official said.

The explosion happened in Palaseen village, about 65km northeast of the region's main town, Parachinar.

"It was a remote-controlled bomb, which was detonated as soon as a passenger van got there," said Hamid Khan, deputy administrator of the region.

Those killed were all civilians.

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Militants linked to al-Qaeda have recently stepped up bomb and suicide attacks in Pakistan after a brief lull amid the worst flooding in the country's history.

About 150 people have been killed in the renewed violence in the last week.

The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to carry out more suicide attacks on government targets in response to US drone strikes in Pakistan's lawless regions in the northwest.

In the last 24 hours, four drone attacks have killed 19 militants.

There was no independent confirmation and militants often dispute government accounts.

Separately, a bomb exploded inside the house of a government minister in the Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta today, killing two people, police said. Baluchistan's finance minister Asim Kurd was unhurt.

Baluchistan, the country's largest but least populated province, has for decades been home to a low-level insurgency by nationalists demanding more autonomy and a bigger share of income from the province's natural resources.

Reuters