At least 46 killed in Pakistan bombings

Two near-simultaneous bomb blasts tore through a crowded market in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, killing at least 36 people and injuring more than 100.

Police said many of the dead were women and children.

Earlier, a suicide bomber killed 10 people outside a courthouse in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Pakistan has been hit with a wave of terrorist strikes as its army tries to clamp down on Islamic militants in the nation’s tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Although many of those attacks have been directed at Pakistani armed forces, police and intelligence agencies, insurgents at times have targeted crowded markets in the country’s largest cities.

The attack in Lahore occurred at 8:45 p.m. at the Moon Market, a popular bazaar that was packed with shoppers. Police say one of the bombs was detonated by remote control; they were investigating whether the second was a suicide blast.

The explosions took place about 30 seconds apart. The first occurred at the back of the market and sent throngs of shoppers running toward the front, police said. As the crowd reached storefronts and stalls at the front end, a second blast occurred there.

The explosions gutted rows of shops, many of which sold clothes and shoes and were frequented by women with children in tow. Televised images from the scene showed flames shooting skyward as fighters struggled for hours to put out the blaze.

Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city and cultural capital, has been hit by several large-scale acts of terrorism in the last couple of years, including a trio of highly coordinated, commando-style attacks on police buildings in October that resulted in 14 deaths.

In May, a team of militants shot its way through the main gate of a complex that housed a police building and intelligence agency office and detonated a van filled with explosives, killing 27 people and injuring at least 250.

In the latest attack in Peshawar, the suicide bomber tried to rush into the courthouse but was met by security guards outside, where he detonated his explosives. At least 45 people were wounded.

Peshawar, a city of nearly 3 million people situated on the edge of Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas, has borne the brunt of the violence inflicted by militants in recent weeks. The death toll from the wave of attacks in and around Peshawar since early October has reached at least 257.

alex.rodriguez@latimes.com