Devastating Lahore blasts caused by suicide bombers: Pakistan

And what do these murders want - Shari'a law.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP)— Blasts which killed 51 people and engulfed a busy market in flames in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore were caused by two suicide bombers, police and bomb disposal experts said on Wednesday.

The two explosions hit within seconds of each other as shoppers and diners milled around the popular Moon Market on Monday evening, with government officials blaming Taliban fighters avenging military operations against them.

"Now it has been confirmed that two suicide bombers carried out these attacks. We have made some arrests but as yet there is no major breakthrough," said Chaudhry Shafiq, a deputy police chief in Lahore.

He told AFP that the death toll from the blast in the nation's cultural capital had risen from 49 to 51, with the two bombers also killed and about 140 people wounded.

Mazhar Ahmad, who heads the bomb disposal squad in Lahore, said ball bearings and grenades were found at the blast site, indicating that the two attackers were wearing suicide vests packed with deadly explosives.

"Both the blasts took place in a highly crowded area. The second blast was near an electricity pole causing an electric short circuit and triggering the fire," he told AFP.

"The fire caused by the blasts and short-circuit engulfed the whole area and caused severe damage," he added. "Had we succeeded in controlling the fire in 10-15 minutes, the human loss would have been less."

The Lahore blasts were part of a surge in militant strikes this week, with a suicide bombing in northwest Peshawar city on Monday killing 11 people, a senior hospital official said, updating the previous death toll of 10.

Then on Tuesday, two suicide attackers firing rockets and guns drove up to the offices of Pakistan's main intelligence agency in the eastern city of Multan, before detonating their car bomb and killing 10 people.

"Rescue workers have recovered another dead body of a woman. A total of 10 people were killed and 47 injured," said Multan police chief Saood Aziz, adding that four of the wounded were in critical condition.

Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist fighters across much of the northwest including the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded by Washington as the most dangerous place on earth.

About 30,000 troops poured into South Waziristan in mid October to try and dismantle the strongholds of the Taliban leadership, enraging militants who have responded with a surge in bomb blasts and attacks.

A fierce Islamist insurgency has killed more than 2,680 people in attacks in Pakistan mostly blamed on the Taliban in the last two-and-a-half years.