18 Pak govt employees blown up

PESHAWAR: A powerful bomb tore through a bus carrying government workers in restive northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 18 people.
More than 40 others were wounded in the attack on the bus hired by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government to take staff home from work.
The blast came on the edge of provincial capital Peshawar, which has long been a flashpoint for a local Taleban insurgency targeting government officials, security forces and ordinary civilians.
Nasir Durrani, the police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told reporters the remote-controlled bomb was planted at the back of the bus, which was reduced to a tangled mess of twisted metal by the force of the blast. Another police officer, Najeebur Rehman, told AFP 18 people had been killed.