The twin blows to Pakistan eclipsed the military's announcement that troops had captured a key Taliban- held town as it stepped up a major offensive in the tribal belt and offered $ 5 million ( Rs 41 crore) for Taliban chiefs dead or alive.

Image From : Times Of India

Monday's attack, near army headquarters in Rawalpindi, turned another routine day into bloodshed for the second time in less than a week -- showing the enormity of the threat that al- Qaeda- linked militants pose in Pakistan.

The blast showered the area with pieces of flesh, smeared blood on the ground and shattered the windows of a multistorey block housing the bank and four- star Shalimar Hotel.

" Our building shook as if in an earthquake and when we came out, there was smoke everywhere and body parts were strewn in our office," said Raja Sher Ali, a marketing manager in a local company.

A senior police officer said the latest attack was the work of a suicide bomber, although rescue workers said the cause of the blast was still unclear.

The suicide bomber came on a motorcycle and blew up close to people gathered to collect their salaries. " We found parts of a suicide vest and some body parts of the suicide attacker," said senior police officer Aslam Tarin.

" Thirty- five people were killed and more than 60 were wounded," said information minister Qamar Zaman Kaira.

Four security personnel were among the dead and nine others wounded, the military said.

The attack took place near the upmarket Pearl Continental Hotel and Pakistan's army headquarters, where 10 gunmen kept up a nearly 24- hour siege last month that left 23 people dead and deeply embarrassed the military.

The plummeting security situation saw the UN announce on Monday it was pulling out international staff from northwest Pakistan, days after at least 118 people were slaughtered in a car bomb in its local capital Peshawar. " They will be relocated immediately," Ishrat Rizvi, a UN spokesperson said of the international workers in the area.

UN secretary general Ban Kimoon raised the security level to phase four in the North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which US officials say are hotbeds of militancy. " The decision has been taken bearing in mind the intense security situation in the region," the statement reads.

TWIN ASSAULT IN LAHORE
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a police checkpoint near bus terminals at the entrance to Lahore late on Monday, wounding seven people, a senior police officer said. The only casualties were the two bombers.

They struck after dark in the congested area on a link road to Pakistan's intercity motorway that dissects the country from the northwestern city of Peshawar to the capital Islamabad and east to Lahore.

" A car was stopped at the checkpost and the two suicide bombers in the car exploded themselves. We have found legs and a head," city police chief Pervez Rathor told reporters.

One warden and two constables were critically wounded and four civilians are also injured. " Bomb disposal staff are defusing remaining explosives in the car. Thank god no one died," Rathor added.

Geo TV showed security officers inspecting a small mangled car in front of a truck and a few other vehicles on a wide road where low concrete blast barriers were visible in front of the damaged car. There were small pieces of debris scattered across the road.

A surge in violence left more than 300 people dead last month as Pakistan presses a major offensive against the Tehreek- e- Taliban Pakistan in the tribal belt, where US officials say al- Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West.