Pakistani Army General Killed in Suicide Blast

A Pakistani army general and two other people were killed in a suicide bombing in Rawalpindi today, state television reported.

Lieutenant general Mushtaq Baig, the army's surgeon general, died along with his driver and a guard, reports said.

The attack happened outside a government office on Mall Road. There was no immediate confirmation of television reports that an army vehicle had been damaged.

It was the first attack outside the troubled north-west of Pakistan since parliamentary elections last week.

"I can see pieces of flesh littering the road and four damaged vehicles," a witness told Reuters.

Rawalpindi, which is close to the capital, Islamabad, and Is home to the army's headquarters, has been the target of a series of recent suicide attacks, including the assassination of the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, in December.

In October, a suicide bomber killed six people in the city in what was believed to be an attempt to assassinate the president, Pervez Musharraf.

Days after that attack, a suicide bomber killed three people at the Rawalpindi home of the political affairs minister, Amir Muqam, who escaped unharmed.