Pakistan: Kidnapped Policemen Found Dead

Twenty-one policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban have been found shot dead in Pakistan, government officials say.

Their bodies were discovered with gunshot wounds on a cricket pitch in the troubled tribal Peshawar region in the northwest.

They were among a group of 25 officers who were seized in the area on Thursday when militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked two checkpoints.

Two officers were killed during the one-hour gun battle.

After the group were abducted, one wounded policeman managed to escape and alert rescue teams. Another is unaccounted for.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion has fallen on the Pakistani Taliban, who have been waging an insurgency against the Pakistani government for the past few years.

The tribal region, near the border with Afghanistan, has a large militant presence and is the main sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan.

Meanwhile in the southern city of Karachi, an explosion has ripped through a bus at a terminal killing six people and wounding 52 others.

A police spokesman said officers were trying to establish whether the blast, which reduced the bus to a charred skeleton, was caused by a bomb or a gas canister that exploded.

Karachi has a long history of political, ethnic and sectarian violence. It is also believed to be home to many Taliban militants who have fled US drone attacks and Pakistani army operations in the northwest.