A suicide bomber killed 18 people and wounded a Pakistani opposition politician Monday in the latest attack to underscore the threat posed by Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants. The attacker blew himself up in a crowd of people at the house of Rashid Akbar Nowani, an MP from the party of former premier Nawaz Sharif, in the town of Bhakkar in Punjab province, police and hospital officials said. “It was a suicide attack, the head of the bomber has been recovered. At least 18 people were killed in the explosion,” senior police officer Khadim Hussain said. “The bomber walked up to the MP's house and detonated himself in the midst of a crowd of party workers, supporters and relatives,” Hussain said. Provincial police chief Shaukat Javed also gave a death toll of 12. The MP was among at least 53 injured people brought to the local hospital, some of them in serious condition, doctor Chaudhry Ahsan-ul-haq said. “Nowani was injured in his legs but he appears out of danger,” the doctor said. “It is a crisis situation here.” The politician's brother, Saeed Akbar, confirmed that his injuries were not life threatening. “His condition is not serious, he is alright,” Akbar said. The blast came just four days after a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside the house of a senior member of Pakistan's ruling coalition in a northwestern town, killing four people. That politician, prominent anti-Taleban campaigner and Awami National Party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan, narrowly survived the attack when his bodyguard jumped on the bomber. Militants also fired rockets Sunday at the family house of the chief minister of troubled North West Frontier Province, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, but caused no casualties. The attacks have piled pressure on President Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to combat the growing threat posed by militants. The Pakistani government Monday scrambled to deny a US newspaper report that Zardari had admitted the hugely unpopular missile strikes were part of a deal with the United States. “We have an understanding, in the sense that we're going after an enemy together,” the Wall Street Journal quoted Zardari as saying when asked about the strikes. “He (Zardari) has never said that they (the strikes) were being done with our knowledge or permission,” Information Minister Sherry Rehman told state television when asked about the interview.
