**At least 17 people have been killed and many more injured by a suspected bomb attack close to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, officials say.**The blast hit a tribal police checkpoint at the Torkham border crossing in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency.
Local police said it appeared that a suicide bomber had struck at sunset as the day’s Ramadan fast came to an end.
The Khyber Agency is a key autonomous region linking Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province to Afghanistan.
Police in the agency are responsible for guarding the famous Khyber Pass, a major trading route connecting Islamabad and Peshawar in Pakistan with Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.
The Torkham border post is the main crossing point for border traffic to and from Afghanistan.
Taliban militants have carried out attacks against a variety of targets along this route in the past, attacking Nato convoys, Pakistani army patrols, local tribal leaders and security checkpoints.
Government bullish
Witnesses said the suicide bomber walked into the police offices and blew himself up at a table spread for Iftar, the traditional breaking of the Ramadan fast.
“At least 17 personnel have been killed and the figure could rise,” one official told the BBC. Those injured were taken to nearby hospitals.
The latest attack came hours after a drone attack in South Waziristan killed at least four militants.
A militant hideout was targeted in the South Waziristan tribal region, Pakistani intelligence officials said, the same region where a strike in early August killed Pakistan’s top Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Earlier, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik said recent army successes in Swat, Waziristan and elsewhere had broken the back of the country’s insurgency.
In a BBC interview, Mr Malik also said Pakistani intelligence reports suggested that many foreign al-Qaeda fighters were now leaving Pakistan for Somalia, while others were returning to their home countries, including Sudan and Yemen.
Correspondents say Pakistan’s military has made significant advances, but there is still a long way to go before the Taliban and al-Qaeda can be described as being defeated.