Pakistani.PK

PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a judicial complex on Thursday, killing 17 people and wounding 46 others, including 6 critical in condition among them, in the latest attack to strike the NWFP capital city of Peshawar, officials said, Geo news reported.The bomb exploded at the main gate of the building near the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel, where at least nine people were killed when attackers shot their way through a security checkpost and blew up a truck bomb in June. Police and paramedics rushed to the scene of Thursday''s attack, where a fork-lift vehicle towed away the mangled wreckage of a car and blackened debris scorched the main road outside the court building, television footage showed. "It was a suicide blast. The attacker was on foot and was trying to enter the judicial complex. When the security personnel stopped him, he blew himself up," Sahib Zada Anis, head of the city''s administration, told reporters. "We have received 17 dead bodies and 46 injured. Six of them are critical," Lady Reading Hospital chief executive, Doctor Abdul Hameed Afridi, told media. Police said the bomber blew himself up at the main gate of the judicial complex just as a van carrying prisoners was passing. Anis told reporters that three policemen were among the dead. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday''s attack, but Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has vowed to attack in the cities to avenge a military assault on its South Waziristan stronghold, now into a fifth week.