Peshawar (Pakistan) A suicide attacker detonated a bomb at a mosque in an army cantonment in northwestern Pakistan late Thursday, killing at least 15 people, police said.
The blast also wounded about 30 people. It happened during evening prayers at Kohat, about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Peshawar, a special branch police official said.
A second official in the provincial police control room said 18 died in the attack, the latest in a series of bombings to hit Pakistan, believed launched by
Islamic militants.
He said the army had sealed off the blast site so little information about the bombing had emerged.
Both officials said most of the victims were believed to be military personnel.
The officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to comment to the media.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said the blast occurred as trainee soldiers were in prayer. He said at least 12 were killed and 10 wounded.
Suicide attacks, bombings and shootings and a bloody army siege of radicals in Islamabad's Red Mosque have already killed about 270 people in Pakistan so far this month, raising concern about the threat posed by religious extremists.
Most of the violence has been concentrated in conservative northwestern Pakistan, where the army has deployed thousands of extra troops amid fears of reprisal attacks by militants over the storming of the mosque.
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