Deadly rocket fire hits Pakistan

Four rockets fired into a city in northwestern Pakistan have killed at least nine people and wounded 35, police say. The attack before dawn on Wednesday comes amid an escalating confrontation between Islamists and the US-backed government.

The rockets hit two houses, a mosque and a shop in Bannu, a city in North West Frontier Province, at about 2am (21:00 GMT on Tuesday), said Khwaja Mohammed, a city police official. Mohammed said five police officers were among the 35 wounded.

A doctor at the main hospital in Bannu said the bodies of nine people killed in the attack were taken there, but a resident said the toll was higher because relatives had kept some of the bodies. Mohammed described the attack as "terrorist activity", but said it was too early to say more about who was behind it. Bannu and other cities in the northwest have suffered a string of shootings and bombings blamed on Taliban fighters who have been expanding their influence from strongholds in the tribal belt along the Afghan border. The attacks and a bloody army siege of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque earlier this month have raised concern about the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, prompting of Pervez Musharraf, the president, to send thousands of security forces to the area

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