PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistan's Taliban on Sunday denied responsibility for twin bomb blasts that ripped through a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 39 people and injuring dozens.

The attack, one of the deadliest in a series to hit Pakistan since US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in May, devastated the Khyber Super Market district which includes a hotel, shops and student accommodation.

A small initial blast at around 11:30 pm local time on Saturday drew onlookers and emergency services before a second more powerful blast, believed to be from a suicide strike, detonated and was heard several kilometers away.

"The death toll has risen to 39 in the blasts as four wounded people died in hospital," senior local police official Ijaz Khan said, adding that the explosions were just four minutes apart.

"The first blast was quite small but as people gathered close to the site of the explosion, the second one, which was a real big one, went off."

Those killed included two journalists working for English-language newspapers Pakistan Today and The News. Many journalists working in Peshawar live in the rooms above the shops and eat at the marketplace's restaurants.

"The target of the militants was to kill a large number of innocent people in the busy market and journalists became the victims by chance," provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.

The bombing badly damaged six shops and the hotel. Pieces of human flesh, along with debris including smashed crockery and broken furniture from the hotel, were scattered outside.

"The first blast was triggered by a timed device planted in the bathroom of the hotel while a suicide bomber riding a motorbike blew himself up near the hotel," bomb disposal chief Shafqat Malik said.

"We have found a head and some other body parts of the bomber from the attack site," he said.

Abdul Hameed Afridi, chief doctor at Peshawar's main Lady Readings hospital, confirmed the death toll and said 108 wounded were brought to the hospital overnight, with 47 of them admitted for treatment.

The Pakistani Taliban, who have vowed to carry out attacks to avenge the killing of bin Laden, denied any role in the bombing and said they only aim their strikes at the government and military.

"We did not carry out this attack in Peshawar. It is an attempt by foreign secret agencies who are doing it to malign us," Tehreek-e-Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said.

"We do not target innocent people. Our targets are very clear, we attack security forces, government and people who are siding with it," Ehsan said.

Nearly 4,500 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on the Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks based in the nearby tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 06/13/2011 page12)