PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Aug 25 (Reuters) - A bomb blast outside a hotel in a garrison town in northwest Pakistan killed nine people and wounded 12 on Thursday, police said.
The bomb went off in the town of Risalpur, near the end of the fasting month of Ramadan when people were busy shopping for the Muslim festival of Eid falling next week.
"It was a remote-controlled bomb and exploded when the market area was crowded with people," the area's police chief Mohammad Hussain said.
The death toll could rise as several people were critically wounded, officials said.
Pakistan has seen a wave of suicide and bomb attacks in the past years, most of them in the northwest where troops are battling Pakistani Taliban militants.
Several military operations have dealt a heavy blow to insurgents but militants have shown they are still able to carry out bomb and suicide attacks.
There have been several attacks since al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in a secret raid in another Pakistani garrison town in May.
Militants have vowed to avenge bin Laden's death.
At least 47 people were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in Pakistan's tribal region of Khyber near the Afghan border last week. (Reporting by Augustine Anthony and Faris Ali; Editing by Chris Allbritton)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
