Pakistani opposition leader Nawaz Sharif today announced his party was boycotting next month's parliamentary elections following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto - and demanded that the country's president resign immediately.

Suicide bombers struck today in two areas of north-western Pakistan, killing up to 38 people, while Taliban militants broke a 10-month-old peace pact with the government along the frontier with Afghanistan.

An al-Qaida explosives and chemical weapons expert and a relative of the terror network’s number-two leader were among three top operatives believed killed in a US missile strike in Pakistan last week, Pakistani security officials said today.