Blasts at Pakistan air base, wedding bus kill 24

Source Associated Press

A suicide bomber killed seven people near a major air force complex in northwest Pakistan on Friday, while an explosion killed 17 on a bus heading to wedding elsewhere in the region, the latest in a surge of militant attacks this month. Also, a car bomb in the northwest's main city wounded 15 people. The bloodshed has coincided with the run-up and first week of a major army offensive in a Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold along the Afghan border. Around 200 people have died as the insurgents have shown they can strike in a variety of ways and places in the nuclear-armed, U.S.-allied nation. The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra is the country's major air force maintenance and research hub.