A suicide attacker detonated a bomb early today at a mosque outside the home of Pakistan’s former interior minister as he received visitors on an Islamic holiday, killing a reported 55 people and wounding dozens more, authorities said.

At least 24 people were killed and 25 wounded when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb that ripped through a crowded Pakistan hotel restaurant in the north-western city of Peshawar today.

A senior figure in an outlawed Sunni Muslim militant group that has been linked to al-Qaida was among six men arrested last week in eastern Pakistan, a police official said today.