A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police station in northwest Pakistan today killing at least 19 people, police said, in the third in a string of attacks by al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants over the last week.
The recent bombings ended a relative lull in militant violence over the past month and turned up the heat on a government struggling with devastating floods that have made millions homeless and hammered the economy.
Nearly 100 people were killed last week in suicide bombings on processions of minority Shia Muslims in the eastern city of Lahore and southwestern city of Quetta.
"It goes to show that the terrorists have no creed except bloodshed and chaos, and are desperately carrying out their agenda regardless of the precarious conditions," Pakistan prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told a meeting of provincial officials.
"I want to stress today that we shall never let their nefarious designs succeed and will eliminate them."
Pakistan's Taliban have been fighting to topple the US-backed government for years. Their ambitions have grown. Last week, they threatened to launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon", after US prosecutors charged the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, over a plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.
Washington also added his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, to its list of "foreign terrorist organisations".
The latest attack in Pakistan took place in the town of Lakki Marwat. The bomber struck a school van before hitting the rear wall of the police station.
"Nineteen people have been killed. There are nine policemen and two children among the dead," said the information minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
He said 34 people, including 20 policemen, were wounded.
Militants have frequently carried out attacks in Lakki Marwat, near Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, known as major sanctuaries for militants loyal to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Earlier this year, a suicide bomber blew himself up in an SUV at a volleyball game, killing nearly 100 people in a village near the town in one of the deadliest attacks in the country.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for last week's attacks in Lahore and Quetta.
Pakistan's government was severely criticised for its slow response to the floods and could face riots or unrest of it does not ease growing anger, analysts say. It must also find ways to prevent an economic meltdown.