Fifteen dead as a suicide bomber disguised in the misogynistic symbol of radical Islam, the burqa, blows up at a checkpoint in Pakistan: Burka-clad bomber kills 15 in Pakistan.

A burka-wearing suicide bomber today detonated explosives that killed at least 15 people at a crowded police checkpoint in north-west Pakistan.

The bomb, which injured 22 others, is believed to have been in a rickshaw that was being examined at the checkpoint at about 8.25am (4.25am BST) in the town of Bannu, police said.

“We have confirmed that the passenger sitting in the rickshaw was wearing a burka and detonated the bomb, but we are checking whether the suicide bomber in a burka was a man or a woman,” the interior minister’s spokesman, Javed Iqbal Cheema, said. …

The Bannu police chief, Ameer Haamza Mahsud, said the casualty figures were high because scores of people were milling about at a nearby bus stand.

The blast killed four police officers and 11 other people, including the bomber, the army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

The district hospital in Bannu reported that at least seven of the injured were in critical condition.

UPDATE at 10/1/07 8:30:18 am:

Also in Pakistan, a 15-year old boy: Teenaged suicide bomber kills 19 in Pakistan.

A suicide bomber of some 15 years of age, blew himself up in a crowded mini van in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing himself and 18 other people, news reports said.

The boy detonated an explosive vest when security forces stopped the vehicle in the town of Dera Ismail Khan and asked him to turn himself over.

Two police officers, two soldiers and passengers died in the blast, Pakistan’s Aaj and other news channels reported. The town’s police chief said the boy was 14 or 15 years of age.

Around a dozen people were injured in the explosion. Body parts were littered around the scene of the blast, confusing initial casualty estimates.