Peshawar: Militants attacked the US consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday but were held off by security forces hours after a suicide bomber killed 38 people elsewhere in the northwest, officials said.
The attacks underscore the danger posed by militants in nuclear-armed US ally Pakistan after a year of military offensives which have dealt the Islamists significant setbacks.
The assault on the tightly guarded consulate came hours after the bomb blast at a gathering of supporters of an ethnic Pashtun-based political party staunchly opposed to the militants.
"I saw attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then blasts went off," city resident Siraj Afridi told Reuters.
A Pakistani intelligence official said no one was wounded inside the US complex but three of its guards had been killed.
"It was a well-planned attack. It was a suicide attack but no one was hurt inside the consulate," said the official.
The US Embassy said it was an attack on their consulate but it declined to give any other details.
US diplomatic missions and staff have been attacked several times in Pakistan since the south Asian country threw its support behind the United States in a global campaign against militancy launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on US cities.
Dawn television showed shaky pictures of three men, apparently attackers, holding their arms up in surrender when a blast hit the area.
The blasts threw clouds of white smoke into the sky and residents said soldiers had cordoned off the scene and ordered people to remain in doors. Helicopters hovered overhead.
Liaqat Ali, chief of police in Peshawar, which is the gateway to Afghanistan and has seen a string of bomb attacks over the past year, said five people including a policeman, were killed.
Provincial government minister Bashir Bilour said four attackers were among the dead.
"They brought in a lot of explosives and some are being disposed off. They were well-armed," Bilour told reporters.
Stock market dealers said the violence briefly brought some selling pressure but the main index provisionally closed 0.46 percent higher on foreign buying.
"Taliban desperate"
Earlier, a suspected suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of the Awami National Party (ANP), in the Lower Dir district, about 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Peshawar, killing 38 people, a hospital doctor said.
Police said the bomber tried to get into the ground where the ANP, which heads a coalition government in North West Frontier Province, was holding a meeting but he was stopped and blew himself up.
The ANP, which is also a member of the ruling federal coalition government, is a largely secular party and opposes the militants battling the state.
Pakistani Taliban militants have attacked ANP gatherings before.
The meeting was called to celebrate the renaming of NWFP, which the party has long demanded. Under constitutional amendments expected to be approved in parliament this week, the province will be renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, in a bid to represent its dominant Pashtun population.
"The Taliban have lost the battle and now, out of desperation, they are carrying out such cowardly attacks," said Haji Mohammad Adeel, an ANP senator.
The long-awaited constitutional amendments, which will also transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, are due to be taken up in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The amendments should ease opposition to the unpopular Zardari and promote political stability, analysts say.
Zardari is due to address parliament later on Monday in the capital, Islamabad, where security has been stepped up for the session.
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