Pakistani security offices attacked - Al Jazeera

Three attacks have taken place on Pakistani police and intelligence buildings on Thursday, killing at least eight people. In the eastern city of Lahore, four gunmen broke into a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) building and opened fire, with at least two of assailants being killed, on Thursday morning. "Reportedly, four men attacked the FIA building and initial reports are that two of them have been killed," Nadeem Hassan Asif Punjab, the province interior secretary, said. An attack also took place on a police academy the outskirts of Lahore. The same academy, the Manawan Police Academy, was attacked by a group of gunmen earlier this year, with 12 people dying in an eight-hour standoff. Unconfirmed local television reports said that two people had been taken hostage. Kohat suicide attack A suicide bomber in a vehicle struck outside a police station in northwest Pakistan, killing at least six people. Civilians are believed to to have been killed in the blast on Thursday morning in Kohat near Peshawar, Habib Khan, a police official, said. "It was a suicide attack," Dilawar Bangash, a district police chief, said. "The bomber ploughed his car into the outer wall of the police station" he said, adding that the building was badly damaged. In recent weeks more than 100 people have been killed in suicide attacks, mostly claimed by the Taliban. Imran Khan, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, the capital, said that the style of attacks pointed to the work of the Taliban. He also said of the FIA attack: "The real question is how were these people able to get into the building. "This is an intelligence agency headquarters. It is a secure building that has been attacked before." Drone attack A suspected US drone attack also killed four people in North Waziristan, on the Afghan border on Thursday. Two missiles struck a house 3km north of Miranshah, the principle town of the region, intelligence officials said. At least three of the dead were Afghan Taliban members, the officials said. "The owner of the house is a member of the Haqqani network," said one of the officials, referring to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran Afghan commander. The Haqqani network carries out attacks on foreign forces across the majority of eastern Afghanistan. Alleged US drone attacks have increased since September 2008, as frustration has grown with Islamabad failing to eliminate Taliban hideouts on Pakistan's side of the border. Hundreds of people have died, mostly opposition fighters, in the 42 drone attacks undertaken this year, including Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban leader. Last year, 32 drone attacks took place.