2 bloody days in Pakistan

Suicide bombers attacked the checkpoint in northwest Pakistan Saturday, killing 13 soldiers and 10 civilians. As many as eight people were also injured in the attack, on a joint checkpoint of the Pakistan army and an allied paramilitary force.

"The civilian casualties include a child and a woman who were killed when one of the attackers entered their home and blew up his suicide jacket," a security official said.

Another official said that forces killed 12 militants. The Taliban claimed responsibility but disputed that the group had lost so many, saying it had sent just four suicide bombers. The security official said that the bodies of only four attackers had been recovered.

"We attacked it to avenge the killing of two of our friends in a recent drone strike," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, told the news agency AFP over the telephone. "The Pakistani army and security forces provide assistance to the US for drone strikes. So, we are taking revenge for their cooperation with the US."

Police in the town of Hangu said that in Friday's suicide bombing that killed 23, (pictured above) the attacker detonated his explosives as worshipers left two mosques in a narrow street after prayers. The bombing killed mostly Shiite Muslims. A Sunni terror group linked to al Qaeda and the Pakistan has claimed responsibility for that attack.

mkg/pfd (AFP, Reuters, AP, dpa)