Blast hits election rally

ISLAMABAD -- A suspected suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded 25 at an election rally in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, a provincial government minister said.

Violence has intensified in Pakistan in recent months, with the army battling militants in the northwest and suicide bomb attacks in towns and cities, raising concern about prospects for the nuclear-armed country in the run-up to Feb. 18 elections.

"We have 16 confirmed dead including three security personnel and 25 wounded," said Imtiaz Gillani, information minister of North West Frontier Province, where the attack took place.

Awami National Party provincial president Afrasiab Khattak was leading the rally in the town of Charsadda.

"There was an explosion at my meeting. There was a big bang and I saw some people getting hit. I'm fine," Khattak said.

The ANP is a secular party competing with religious parties in the legislative elections which were postponed from Jan. 8 after opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack on Dec 27.

Some Pakistanis believe President Pervez Musharraf, whose popularity has slumped over the past year and whose allies look set to do badly in the vote, might use violence as an excuse to postpone the elections again.

The government has blamed an al Qaida-linked militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who is based in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, for the attack on Bhutto and many of the other recent attacks across the country.

The military has stepped up operations against Mehsud in recent weeks. Security analysts fear the militants will launch more attacks in the run-up to the vote as part of their campaign to destabilize the country.

Separately, police used water cannons and tear gas to break up a protest by hundreds of lawyers who tried to march to the home of Pakistan's deposed chief justice in the capital, Islamabad.

Former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was dismissed in November when Musharraf imposed emergency rule citing rising militancy and a meddling judiciary.

He has been kept under house arrest since then.

Seven people including four policemen were injured in Saturday's protest, a city official said.