111 die on a day of carnage

The attacks hit the neighboring countries just days before President Barack Obama makes a key decision on whether or not to send thousands more troops into an increasingly deadly region.

The Peshawar attack struck just hours after she arrived in Islamabad, with the devastating blast trapping people under pulverized shops. Flames reached out of the burning wreckage as smoke billowed over severed body parts. Eyewitnesses tell of living hell. The explosion brought down buildings. Doctors at the Lady Reading Hospital said many of the casualties were women and children, as a routine day out in the city's main bazaar ended in horror and eclipsed Clinton's first visit as secretary of state to Pakistan.

"We have 92 dead bodies and 217 injured people. Nineteen of the dead are women and 11 are children. All the dead are civilians," Dr. Zafar Iqbal said as staff declared an emergency and called for blood donations.

"It was a car bomb. Some people are still trapped," bomb disposal official Shafqat Malik told reporters as the death toll rose into the early evening.

Appalled hospital staff gave harrowing accounts of the dead and wounded piling up in hospital corridors. "There are body parts. There are people. There are burned people. There are dead bodies. There are wounded," said Dr. Muslim Khan.

In Kabul, Taleban suicide attackers stormed a guesthouse and killed 11 people, including six foreign UN staff; Kazinform cites the Arab News.

See www.arabnews.com for full version