PESHAWAR: A powerful suicide car bomb ripped through the Peshawar headquarters of Pakistan’s top spy agency today, killing at least 10 people and

leaving much of the fortified building in ruins.

A similar bombing killed eight people in another northwest town, the latest in a spate of attacks as 30,000 troops press their most ambitious assault yet against Taliban militants in their mountain strongholds on the Afghan border.

The attack devastated the three-storey Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) provincial headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, sending huge clouds of smoke spewing into the sky and destroying more than half of the building.

The bomber, driving a mini-truck loaded with explosives, raced down the road towards the ISI building shortly before sunrise, said provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Soldiers opened fire after they spotted the truck, but the bomber ploughed into a steel barrier and blew up the vehicle outside the main gate of the ISI compound, wreaking massive destruction, he added.

More than half of the

U-shaped building was destroyed by the force of the

blast which devastated its

outer wall, a front portion and a column, and scattered bodies among the rubble.

Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt infested with Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, has increasingly become the favoured target for major attacks by suspected Taliban militants in recent months, particularly since the army launched its massive offensive in October.

Absar Ahmed, a taxi driver, said he was driving near the ISI building when he heard gunshots followed by a huge blast.

“My car was hurled on to

the pavement by the force of the blast and my head banged into the windscreen. When I looked back to check on my passenger there was smoke all over,” said Ahmed in hospital. The attacks coincided with a visit by US National Security Advisor James Jones who held talks with Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani.

The United States has put Pakistan on the frontline of its war against Al-Qaeda and has been increasingly disturbed by deteriorating security in the country where attacks and bombings have killed about 2,500 people in 28 months.

Pakistan’s powerful and shadowy intelligence agencies have a history of supporting the Islamist groups in a bid to counter rival India, but militant attacks have turned against domestic security targets in the last two years.

“Seven military officials and three civilians were martyred and 60 others were injured,” a military statement said.

“Up to 300 kilograms of high explosives and mortars were packed into the car bomb,” provincial police chief Malik Naveed told AFP.

A second suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a suburban police station in the garrison town of Bannu, southwest of Peshawar, killing seven security personnel and a prisoner, police said.

The most devastating bomb attack in Pakistan in two years killed at least 118 people in a crowded Peshawar market on October 28 as militants put ordinary civilians in the crosshairs of their bloodycampaign.