MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) -- A bomb attack on a Pakistani security agency office in the southeastern city of Multan today killed nine people, security officials said.
Islamist militants have set off numerous bombs in Pakistan in recent months, most in the northwest of the country, near remote border lands where the army is battling Taliban militants.
The blast in Multan will compound fears that the militants are expanding their campaign out of the northwest after two bombs went off in a market in the eastern city of Lahore late on December 7, killing 49 people and wounding more than 100.
"They tried to hit the office of a sensitive agency but couldn't, so the blast was outside," one security official said, adding four soldiers and five civilians, including some children, had been killed.
Television stations showed buildings with their facades partly blasted away.
Many of the recent militant attacks have been on the security forces, including the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi.
A suicide car-bomber killed 10 people in an attack on an office of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in the northwestern city of Peshawar on November 13.
Islamist militants have set off numerous bombs in Pakistan in recent months, most in the northwest of the country, near remote border lands where the army is battling Taliban militants.
The blast in Multan will compound fears that the militants are expanding their campaign out of the northwest after two bombs went off in a market in the eastern city of Lahore late on December 7, killing 49 people and wounding more than 100.
"They tried to hit the office of a sensitive agency but couldn't, so the blast was outside," one security official said, adding four soldiers and five civilians, including some children, had been killed.
Television stations showed buildings with their facades partly blasted away.
Many of the recent militant attacks have been on the security forces, including the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi.
A suicide car-bomber killed 10 people in an attack on an office of the military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in the northwestern city of Peshawar on November 13.