Bombs, gun battle, rock Pakistan's Peshawar

Two bombs exploded in a market in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, killing six people, and gunmen on rooftops ambushed police as they arrived at the scene, police said.

A short while later, a suicide bomber attacked a paramilitary checkpost in another part of the city, killing five soldiers, a wounded soldier said.

"He was on foot and as we saw him, he ran and blew himself up when he got close to us," Wasiullah, a paramilitary soldier wounded in the attack, told Reuters as he arrived at a hospital. Police confirmed the attack.

The violence came hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide car-bomb and gun attack in the eastern city of Lahore that killed 24 people, saying it was in revenge for an army offensive in the Swat region.

"We were looking for this target for a long time. It was a reaction to the Swat operation," Hakimullah Mehsud, a militant commander loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, said by telephone.

Militant violence in nuclear-armed Pakistan, an important U.S. ally, has surged since mid-2007, with attacks on the security forces, as well as on government and Western targets, and the Taliban on Thursday threatened more violence.

The two bombs were planted on motorbikes in the Storytellers Bazaar in Peshawar's old city and caused extensive damage. Six people were killed and about 70 wounded, provincial government minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour told Reuters.

Soon afterwards, gunmen on rooftops began firing at police in lanes below. Television showed policemen firing back while colleagues strapped on bullet-proof vests. Police later said two gunmen had been killed and two suspects detained.