Death toll in Charsadda suicide attack rises to 18: officials

The death toll from a suicide bombing on a police checkpost in northwest Pakistan has risen to 18, police and hospital officials said Thursday. A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-filled car into a police checkpost in Charsadda, just north of Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province on Wednesday night. Sixteen people were earlier reported to have died. "Bodies of two civilians were found near the site of the attack, raising the death toll in the attack to 18," local police official Nasrullah Khan said. Khan said that seven police officials were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously. They had all been moved to the northwestern city of Peshawar for treatment, he said. Hospital official Mohammad Ali also confirmed that 18 people were killed in the attack. "We have received 18 bodies in our hospital," Ali said, adding that the dead included nine police and nine civilians.