A SUICIDE bomber blew himself up yesterday in a crowded market in northwestern Pakistan, killing an anti-Taliban mayor who had formed a militia to fight the militants and 11 other people, officials said.

A suicide bomber blew himself up today in a market in Pakistan’s north west crowded with shoppers ahead of a Muslim holiday, killing 12 people, including a mayor who once supported but had turned against the Taliban, officials said.

SUICIDE attackers detonated a truck bomb yesterday outside a luxury hotel in Peshawar that US officials were in negotiations to make into an American consulate, officials said.