Taliban car bomb targets US convoy in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, May 20 (AFP): The Taliban bombed a US consulate convoy in Peshawar on Friday, killing one person and wounding 11 others in the first attack on Americans in Pakistan since Osama bin Laden's death. A US embassy spokesman said two US government employees were lightly wounded in the rush-hour attack in the volatile northwestern city, which runs into the tribal belt that Washington has branded a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda. One of two armoured vehicles was damaged by what a bomb disposal official said was 50 kilos of low-grade explosives packed into a car and detonated by remote-control, dismissing initial reports of a suicide bomber on a motorcycle. "Two vehicles of the US consulate were on their way to the consulate when they were attacked," US embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez told AFP. "One vehicle was damaged. There is no death among our personnel and there are no serious injuries," he added. Meanwhile, a US drone strike destroyed a vehicle in Pakistan's Taliban-infested North Waziristan district on the Afghan border, killing four suspected militants Friday, local officials said. The two missiles struck the Tappi area, 10 kilometres (six miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan, where US officials want Pakistan to launch an offensive against networks fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan. "A US drone targeting a militants' vehicle fired two missiles killing four militants," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.