Suicide bomb kills six at Pakistan police station

The country's main Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attack in the protected military zone of the northwestern city of Peshawar, saying it was their fourth reprisal for the US killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The bombing will likely highlight doubts about the security forces' ability to protect not only themselves, but major cities and fuel a long-running debate about the security of the country's nuclear weapons.

Militant unrest, much of it in the form of suicide attacks, has killed nearly 4,400 people in the past four years as the Taliban and militants linked to Al-Qaeda wage a bloody onslaught on Pakistan's US-allied leadership.

Five policemen and a soldier died in Wednesday's explosion, a relatively low toll given the enormity of the blast, but officials said the building normally had only a skeleton staff at the time of the attack.

Senior police official Shafiullah Khan said six people had died, after one policeman succumbed to his injuries in hospital and the body of another was pulled out of the rubble.

Police said another 23 people, including nine policemen and a child, were wounded in the blast in Peshawar, the gateway to the tribal belt on the Afghan border where US drone strikes target Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.

The razed building housed the police Criminal Investigation Department and was located in the Peshawar Cantonment area just 150 metres (yards) from the US consulate. The area houses military families and security is normally tight.

Police said the attack was carried out with a small truck containing at least 200-250 kilograms (440-550 pounds) of explosives, and that body parts were hurled more than 300 metres (yards) away from the blast.

A Taliban spokesperson said that the attacks to avenge the martyrdom of Osama bin Laden will continue until the US drone strikes and ongoing Pakistani military operations are stopped in tribal regions.

The military rushed to seal off the area around the Peshawar police station after the 4:38 am (2338 GMT Tuesday) blast.

Last Friday, the Taliban bombed a US consulate convoy, killing one Pakistani and wounding 11 other people in Peshawar, the first attack on Americans in Pakistan since bin Laden's killing in the town of Abbottabad on 2 May.

Late on Sunday, heavily armed Taliban gunmen stormed a naval base in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi, destroying two US-made surveillance planes and killing 10 personnel in a 17-hour standoff.

That was the worst assault on a military base since the army headquarters was besieged in October 2009, piling further embarrassment on the armed forces three weeks after bin Laden was found living under their noses.

Bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, a garrison town north of Islamabad, in a raid that humiliated Pakistan's security establishment.

Following the brazen attack in Karachi, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday in Kabul that he was confident Pakistan's nuclear weapons were safe, but admitted the issue was a "matter of concern".

Tensions between the United States and Pakistan have run high since the Al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks was killed.

However, the Pentagon said Tuesday that Pakistan had returned the wreckage of a US helicopter that was damaged and deliberately destroyed during the raid.