Suicide blast in Pakistan kills 6

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A suicide bomber on a motorbike rammed into a minibus carrying security personnel, detonating a blast Monday that killed at least six people in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, police said.

The bus was destroyed and several other people were wounded in the explosion on a road running through a bazaar near the offices of the army's engineering department, police official Abdul Waheed said.

It was not immediately clear which branch of the armed forces the passengers were from. Police said the army had cordoned off the area.

In recent months there have been a series of suicide bombings in Rawalpindi, a city where the army has its headquarters about seven miles from the capital Islamabad. President Pervez Musharraf also stays in the city.

On December 27, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and about 20 others died in a gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi.

Before that, a series of attacks hit security forces and employees of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, including two suicide bombings against a bus of ISI employees and an army checkpoint on November 24 that killed up to 35 people.

There have been no claims of responsibility for the attacks, but authorities have blamed Taliban militants based near the Afghan border who pose a growing security threat across Pakistan. E-mail to a friend

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