A car bomb has exploded outside the women’s waiting area of a government office in Pakistan’s troubled north-west tribal region, killing at least 12 people and wounding 45 others, government officials said.

A series of clashes in southern Afghanistan left 43 suspected Taliban militants dead, while a roadside bomb killed two Nato soldiers and wounded three others, officials said today.

Iraqi army forces arrested a high-level insurgent today who was wanted for running an assassination cell in Baghdad.