A Pakistani police officer injured in a bombing in the Dir region, is brought to a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, for treatment yesterday. Bombings targeting police killed 10 people and wounded 14 in Pakistan's volatile northwest and the capital yesterday, vivid reminders of the challenge facing the United States-allied country as its lawmakers pursue a national consensus on battling terrorism. - AP

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP):

Bombings targeting police killed 10 people and wounded 14 in Pakistan's volatile northwest and the capital yesterday, vivid reminders of the challenge facing the US-allied country as its lawmakers pursue a national consensus on battling terrorism.

Later, two areas in Pakistan's militant-riddled northwest were hit by suspected US missiles, killing nine people, according to two Paksitani intelligence officials.

One of the earlier attacks, an apparent suicide car bombing, occurred in a police complex in Islamabad. It wrecked an anti-terror squad building and wounded at least four police, while lawmakers met elsewhere in the capital for a rare, private military briefing about domestic militancy.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb struck a prisoners' vehicle in the Dir region near Afghanistan and killed two police, four inmates and four children. Ten people were wounded, said Sher Bahadur Khan, a senior government official.

Al-Qaida and Taliban militants have established bases in Pakistan's northwest near the Afghan border, and it is that region that bears the brunt of the violence in the country. But in recent weeks, the militants have repeatedly demonstrated their reach extends farther.