The Peshawar car bombing - the second of three explosions - occurred in a restaurant car park [AFP]

The group, which included women and children, were on a bus in the Mohmand area, a haven for Taliban fighters.

Authorities said that the cause of the explosion on Friday was unclear, but that it could have been a remote-controlled bomb.

Earlier a large car bomb struck in a restaurant car park in the northwestern city of Peshawar, wounding about 10 people.

"It is a car bomb. There are 10 people wounded and the blast took place in a parking area of a restaurant in Hayatabad," Fazal-e-Amin, a police official at the scene of the attack in the city's upmarket area of Hayatabad, said.

Waseem Shah, a journalist with Pakistan's Dawn TV, said: "The occupants of the car parked the car in a small restaurant, also housing a wedding hall, snooker club and video club where youngsters visit."

Shah said that there were no apparent government or military links to the area.

The explosion in Peshawar occurred barely hours after a suicide bomb blast left at least seven people dead and nine others wounded at a military base near the country's capital.

Defence office targeted

The attack occurred close to the Kamra aeronautical facility, about 80km west of Islamabad.

The assailant was reportedly riding a bicycle and detonated the bomb when stopped at a security checkpoint on the access road to the complex, police said.

Fakhar Sultan, the district police chief, said two air force personnel were among the dead.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The complex at Kamra or its workers have been targeted at least once before.

In December 2007, a suicide car bomber struck near a bus carrying children of air force employees, wounding five of them.

The three blasts follow a gun attack on a military vehicle on Thursday in Islamabad which killed a brigadier and his driver.

Two men had approached the vehicle on a motorbike and sprayed bullets at it before fleeing.

Millions of students have been kept at home this week as Pakistan shut all schools and colleges after a suicide attack on Tuesday at a university.

On October 10, fighters staged an ambush on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi. It was later claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban in  Pakistan.

Almost three weeks of attacks by the Pakistani Taliban have left about 170 people dead.

The surge in violence comes as the military's offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan enters its seventh day.

Gilani condemned the Kamra attack and vowed that the government would not waver in its resolve to "root out terrorism".

"They  knew that when the South Waziristan offensive started that there was always the possibility of a backlash and that's what we are seeing," our correspondent said, referring to the Pakistani authorities.

"[The government] is aware that they have to do something, because people are scared. You can see it on the streets, in the fact that there is not as much traffic around as usual, that the markets are quieter, cinemas across the country are reporting that attendances are down."

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