PARACHINAR, Pakistan: A car bomb killed at least 11 people in a town in northwest Pakistan Friday, a police official said. The explosion occurred near a hospital in Hangu, the town's police chief, Abdul Rashid, said. Five people were wounded. Pakistan's US-backed government faces Taliban insurgents who have sustained a campaign of suicide bombings in defiance of a series of military offensives launched last year against their strongholds in the northwest. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up beside a minibus in the nearby town of Kohat, killing at least 16 people, officials said. The Pakistani Taliban movement, which is linked to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for a twin suicide bombing on the office compound of a government official in the Mohmand region of the northwest on Monday, which killed at least 40 people.
