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 Saturday drew onlookers and emergency services before a second more powerful blast, believed to be from a suicide strike, detonated and was heard for miles around.
"Death toll has risen to 39 in the blasts as four wounded people died in hospital,'' senior local police official Ijaz Khan told AFP, 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 real big one, went off.''
Nearly 4,500 people have been killed across Pakistan in attacks blamed on Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks based in the nearby tribal belt since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in 2007.
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