Bombings in two Pakistan cities killed 46 people yesterday, as militants struck back in the wake of an army offensive against a Taliban stronghold in the northwest near the Afghan border.

An accidental explosion ripped through a store in northwestern Pakistan today, killing at least three people and trapping others in a separate building that caught fire, police said — rattling nerves in a city repeatedly pounded with militant attacks.

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a courthouse in Pakistan yesterday, killing 19 people in the latest attack by Islamist militants retaliating against an army offensive near the Afghan border.

A suicide bomber killed 19 people today outside a courthouse in northwestern Pakistan, the latest attack in an onslaught by Islamist militants fighting back against an army offensive in the nearby Afghan border region.

More than a dozen militants opened fire on the house of an anti-Taliban mayor in northwestern Pakistan today, but security guards repelled the attack, killing three assailants who had disguised themselves by wearing women's burqas, police said.

A suicide car bomber killed 10 people, including four children, Saturday at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, in the latest in a string of militant attacks targeting the city, officials said.

A suicide bomber in a pickup truck attacked the northwestern regional headquarters of the Pakistani spy agency overseeing a campaign against militancy, killing 10 people today. Another suicide assault in the area killed six more.

A Pakistani mayor who had made a stand against the Taliban was yesterday among a dozen people killed after a suicide bomber set off an explosion outside of the city of Peshawar.

Hillary Clinton reached into her wardrobe for the colours of Pakistan's flag for her first visit as Secretary of State. On top of a green pantsuit, her neck was wreathed in alternating white and green stones. But Mrs Clinton will encounter many Pakistanis who are unmoved by her sartorial taste, or her just as carefully chosen words. So deep is the trust deficit between the two allies that 80 per cent of Pakistanis oppose their country's co-operation with the US, according to a recent poll.

A suspected Taliban car bomb exploded in a Pakistan market today killing more than 90 people, mostly women and children, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived to pledge support for the campaign against Islamist militants.

A suicide bomber killed seven people near a major air force complex in north-west Pakistan today while an explosion killed 17 on a bus heading to a wedding elsewhere in the region.