Also from Agence France-Presse, "Pakistan quells militant attack, eight killed: Official":
Pakistani security forces on Saturday quelled a militant attack on a police station in which eight people were killed including four suicide bombers, one police and three civilians, police said.
The attackers targeted the main police station in Dera Ismail Khan city near the lawless tribal region, provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AFP.
Three suicide bombers detonated themselves and one was shot dead by the army, police chief of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Akbar Hoti told AFP.
"Army and police units have entered the police station and a search operation is over," he said after an operation lasting over two hours.
"We have recovered bodies of four militants, they were all wearing suicide vests," he said.
One police official and three civilians were also killed in the operation, he said adding that eight others including a policeman were wounded.
"We are checking the identity of the civilian casualties to ascertain if they included any militants," he said.
Interior minister Rehman Malik blamed Taliban militants for the attack. "Terrorists attacked security forces," he told reporters.
Police spokesman Mohammad Hanif said earlier police shot dead two militants and at least one other blew himself up.
He said he believed about half a dozen militants stormed the station located in a sensitive area housing government offices, district courts and lawyers chambers.
They hurled hand grenades and opened fire on the office of the district police chief, he said. The police chief was unhurt, he added.
Authorities summoned troops and commandos ringed the area, police said.
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