A suicide bomber killed 30 people outside a bank near Pakistan’s capital today, while the UN said spreading violence in the country had forced it to suspend long-term development work in the north west regions along the Afghan border.

At least four people have been killed in an explosion in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, just a few miles away from the capital Islamabad.

The United Nations has declared the Pakistani capital Islamabad unsafe for the children of its international staff and ordered them out, putting the once tranquil city on a par with Kabul and Somalia.