Latest developments

A suspected suicide bomber attacked an office of the UN World Food Programme in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, yesterday killing five staff and wounding several. The UN has temporarily closed all of its offices in Pakistan. There was no claim of responsibility for the attack on the WFP office, which is several hundred meters from the Islamabad home of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Foreign and Afghan forces launched an assault yesterday against a group of Taliban in an area of eastern Afghanistan where the militants killed eight US soldiers at the weekend. Saturday's attacks in remote Nuristan province near the Pakistani border were the deadliest on US forces in more than a year.

Pakistan's security forces arrested 16 militants in the continued search and clearance operations in northwest Pakistan's Swat and Malakand districts during the last 24 hours, the army said yesterday.