The death toll from car bomb in the Pakistani city of Peshawar has risen to 105, a day after the blast. At least 200 others were injured in Wednesday’s attack. Overnight, more bodies were recovered and some of the wounded died.
Similar attacks have killed hundreds of people in recent weeks, as the army carries out an operation against Taliban militants in South Waziristan.
The blast came as Hillary Clinton visited Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
The Taliban denied carrying out the bombing at the city in north-west Pakistan.
But the government blames them for a wave of attacks apparently launched in response to the army operation against the militants’ strongholds on the Afghan border.
A senior Peshawar police officer Khan Abbas said that three bodies had been recovered from the debris and two of the injured had died overnight in the hospital.
A doctor at a Peshawar hospital, Zafar Iqbal, told the AFP news agency that 71 of the 105 dead had been identified. They included 13 children and 27 women, he said.
Deadliest attack
Funerals are taking place of the people who died in the attack.
‘An attack of sheer hellishness’](http://www.paklinks.com/2/low/south_asia/8330708.stm)
The attack was the deadliest to hit Pakistan this year.
Some security analysts say it could turn the people against militants.
“He who kills a Muslim has no place but hell,” Mumtaz Ali, 19, who was injured in the attack, told the Associated Press news agency.
The BBC’s Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says that few people will take the Taliban’s denial seriously.
Our correspondent says the Talban remain the main suspects, if only because few other groups would have a motive for such an attack.
The blast tore through buildings in Peshawar’s Peepal Mandi market street, destroying several - including a mosque - and leaving others on fire.
Most of the dead were women and children.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is in Pakistan to discuss US concerns about rising militant attacks and the security of the country’s nuclear weapons, condemned the “vicious and brutal” bombing.
“Pakistan is in the midst of an ongoing struggle against tenacious and brutal extremist groups who kill innocent people and terrorise communities,” she said.
Last week, Pakistan launched an offensive in South Waziristan, which is considered to be the main sanctuary for Islamic militants outside Afghanistan.
Correspondents say the Peshawar blasts will come as a violent reminder for the US of the difficult task it is facing in the fight against the Taliban, both in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.
MILITANT ATTACKS IN OCTOBER
- 28 Oct -At least 91 killed by a car bomb in a market in Peshawar
- 23 Oct -At least 22 killed in three attacks in northern Pakistan
- 20 Oct -Eight die in the twin blasts at a university in Islamabad
- 16 Oct -Twelve die in a bombing in Peshawar
- 15 Oct -About 40 die in a series of gun and bomb attacks
- 12 Oct -Security convoy attacked in Swat valley, 41 die
- 10 Oct -Militants attack Rawalpindi army HQ - 20 killed
- 9 Oct -At least 50 die in Peshawar suicide blast
- 5 Oct -Five killed in suicide bomb at UN Islamabad offices
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