Suicide bombers on Friday struck Pakistan’s powerful ISI hitting its operational headquarters in Peshawar and a police station in Bannu, killing 20 people, including seven personnel of the spy agency.

The strike on the spy agency overseeing Pakistan’s anti-terror campaign and on the police station left 85 people wounded and came as 30,000 troops were pressing Taliban and foreign militants in their stronghold in lawless Waziristan.

A suicide attacker rammed his explosives-laden truck into the gate of the ISI office within the cantonment of Peshawar city at 6.40 am, killing at least 12 people and injuring 60 others, police said. The bomber’s car was packed with 200 kg of explosives, IGP Malik Naveed Khan said.

Though the guards opened fire on the car, the attacker rammed his vehicle into the building reducing it to rubble, police said.

An hour later, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden mini truck near the main police station at Bakakhel in Bannu district of NWFP, killing eight and injuring 25.

Friday’s attack was the second strike on the Pakistan’s powerful and shadowy military spy agency ISI over the past two months. The agency’s office complex was earlier attacked in Lahore in which about three dozen people were killed.

Hospital officials said they had received nine bodies while three persons succumbed to injuries after being brought in by rescue workers.

The ISI office on Khyber Road that was targeted is located a short distance from an Army stadium and the official residences of several dignitaries, including the Governor and Chief Minister of the North West Frontier Province.

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