Fatal blast near Musharraf's HQ

A suicide bomb attack has killed at least seven people and injured 11 near Pakistan's army headquarters, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Officials said the blast occurred some 2km (1.24 miles) away from a secure compound containing the army HQ and President Pervez Musharraf's office.

General Musharraf was in his office at the time of the attack, but was unhurt.

The attack follows a number of recent bombings in Pakistan, which have been blamed on Islamic militants.

The location of the explosion was a police checkpoint.

A man had approached the checkpoint on foot and detonated his explosives, a government spokesman said.

Two policemen and two paramilitary soldiers were among those killed by the explosion, along with the suspected bomber, according to the AFP news agency.

President Musharraf was safe inside his headquarters in Army House discussing the security situation with senior officials when the bomb went off, according to presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi.

Heightened tensions

This is the third bombing in Rawalpindi in the past two months.

On 4 September, two suicide bombers killed 25 people in the city, in an attack on a bus carrying intelligence officials to work.

The following month, 139 people were killed when bombers in Karachi attacked the motorcade of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.

These earlier bombings are thought to have been the work of Islamic militants, who are angry with both the Musharraf government and Ms Bhutto, whom they believe to be too closely allied to the US.

Tensions in the country were heightened in July when Gen Musharraf ordered troops to storm the Red Mosque in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, killing hundreds.

The mosque had been occupied by Islamic militants, who were using it as a base from which to organise opposition to the government and enforce strict Sharia law in Islamabad.