A suicide bomber killed 29 people at a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday, highlighting the militant challenge facing the government after the resignation of Pervez Musharraf. In other violence in the wake of Pervez Musharraf's decision to bow out on Monday, five soldiers and 13 Taliban militants were killed in a tribal region, bordering Afghanistan.
The suicide attack happened as Shiite Muslims gathered to protest over the death of a man in a suspected sectarian attack in Dera Ismail Khan, said NWFP police chief Malik Naveed Khan.
"There are 23 confirmed dead and up to 20 wounded. We have found the legs of the suspected suicide bomber," Khan told private television channel, adding that tensions were high in the area after the blast. Provincial police spokesman Riaz Ahmed said the dead included civilians and policemen who went to the hospital to provide security for the protest.
"A Shiite salesman was fatally wounded in an attack at a grocery store and was brought to the city's district hospital, when there was a blast in the emergency ward," Ahmed told AFP. Another police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident could be linked to sectarian violence.