Army General killed in Pakistan suicide attack

The Pakistani army's top medical officer was killed in a suicide bombing in the garrison city of Rawalpindi today.

General Mushtaq Baig, his driver and his bodyguard were killed when a teenage boy wearing an explosive-filled jacket blew himself up near the car in which they were travelling.

Gen. Baig was accompanied by a security escort but the suicide bomber was able to approach his vehicle while it was stopped at a traffic signal. A passer-by was also killed and eight people were injured.

Gen. Baig, the surgeon general of the Pakistan Army Medical Corps, is the highest ranking army official to have died in a terrorist attack triggered by the army operation in tribal areas in support of the war against terror in Afghanistan.

The attack was the first major terrorist act since the February 18 general election in which parties supporting President Pervez Musharraf were defeated.