Three die as militants hit US consulate in Pakistan

ISLAMIST militants attacked a US consulate in north-west Pakistan with car bombs and grenades yesterday, killing three people, hours after 41 people died in a suicide attack on a political rally elsewhere in the region.

The assaults illustrated the resilience of militants in the country despite intense army operations and US missile strikes in their north-western havens near Afghanistan. The US Embassy in Islamabad said the militants attempted to enter the building and fired grenades and other weapons. This came after the car bomb explosions.

The embassy said no Americans were killed but did not say whether the building was damaged. The last attack against a US mission was in Karachi in 2006. Al-Qaida and Taliban militants have long vowed to attack the US, which has fired scores of missiles at them in their north-western strongholds over the last year. Earlier, a suicide bomber struck a Pashtun nationalist party rally in Lower Dir to celebrate the government-supported proposal to change the name of North West Frontier Province to Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa.