Title changed, details added (first version posted at 07:25)
At least 68 people were killed and over 80 others injured in a powerful twin suicide blast that took place early Friday morning at a military training center in Charsadda, a city some 30 kilometers northeast of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan, local media quoted the top official of the police department in the city as saying.
According to Nisar Khan, District Police Officer of Charsadda, the blasts have so far killed 68 people and injured some 80 others and the death toll could further rise due to the lack of adequate medical facilities in the local hospital, Xinhua reported.
Some of the injured people have to be shifted to the hospital in the neighboring city of Peshawar, said the report.
According to local media reports, the attack took place at about 6:10 a.m.local time when a motorcycle and a horse cart both laden with explosives attacked a Frontier Corps training center in the Shabqadar area of the city.
It is not known at this point how many kgs of explosives have been used in the attacks, said local police.
The blasts took place at the main gate of the training center when FC personnel were on their way back after morning exercises.
So far at least seven FC personnel have been confirmed killed in the blasts. Some of the killed also include civilians as the military training center is located nearby a market, said local media reports, adding that over 15 shops and a lot of vehicles were also destroyed in the blasts.
Police have cordoned off the area shortly after the blasts were reported. Journalists are kept away from the blast site. Local media reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying that ambulances were heard rushing towards the site.
No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack yet.
Friday morning's terrorist attack is the most serious one of its kind in Pakistan since the killing of the al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden by the U.S.special task forces in Pakistan's northwestern city of Abbottabad on May 2. Both al-Qaida and Pakistan Taliban have vowed to avenge the death of bin Laden by threatening to launch attacks in Pakistan as well as in other places of the world.