Militants launched a string of attacks in the Pakistani heartland and in the troubled northwest on Thursday, killing 29 people after a week of violence in which more than 100 people died.

The attacks on police in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, and a car bomb in Kohat in the northwest, come ahead of an expected military offensive against the Taliban in their South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border.

Later, a blast went off in a neighbourhood where government workers live in the northwestern city of Peshawar killing a child and wounding nine people, a rescue worker and media said.
The cause was not immediately known.

The violence, just days after a daring raid on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, underscored the risk posed by militants to Punjab, Pakistan's most economically important province and the country's traditional seat of power.

"First the (North West) Frontier province was on the front line, now they are playing their games in Punjab," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Geo television.

The government says most attacks in the country are plotted in South Waziristan and carried out by Taliban, often with the help of allies from militant groups based in Punjab province.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is under US pressure to crack down on Islamic militancy as President Barack Obama considers a boost in troop numbers fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan. - Reuters