Reuters: Pakistan blast victims buried 22 December

At least 38 people lost their lives in the explosion at the mosque where a former interior minister offering Muslim Eid festival prayers is believed to have been the likely target.

At least 22 police officers have been killed in a suicide bombing outside the high court in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Thursday. Around 35 others have suffered injuries, according to police. The blast comes two weeks after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide bomb attack in the northern city of Rawalpindi, amid a wave of militant violence that has taken more than 800 lives. Images courtesy of Geo TV.

The attack took place in the city's religiously mixed Harthiya district. The bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a public park while many families were leaving the gardens.

Pakistan is reeling from a bombing campaign waged by Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban. This latest explosion follows an attack on Sunday (March 2nd) which targeted a gathering of tribal elders in the north-western town of Dara Adam Khel. Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, has rarely been targeted although a suicide bomber killed 19 people, mostly police, in an attack near the High Court in January.

The blast happened a week after Pakistan held largely peaceful parliamentary elections and was the first bomb attack outside the violence-plagued northwest since the vote.

Military officials said a motorcyclist rammed into a bus taking medical staff to work. Violence has intensified in Pakistan in recent months with the army battling militants in the northwest and suicide bomb attacks in towns and cities, deepening concern about the future of the nuclear-armed country in the run-up to parliamentary elections later this month.

Pakistan’s opposition politicians have had to fight corruption charges and even allegations of conspiracy to hijack a plane while campaigning for next month’s national elections. But those obstacles pale in comparison to the challenges faced by one candidate whose body was severely mauled by a bomb blast just six months ago.

The attack occurred outside the High Court in Lahore, and most of the dead were policemen, a city official said.

Pakistan is in the middle of a wave of violence blamed on al Qaeda-linked militants based in tribal lands on the Afghan border and there have been three suicide attacks in as many days.