Bomb Planted Under Bus Seat Kills 15 In Pakistan

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Nearly 40 people were also wounded in the blast

Fifteen people have been killed in a bus bombing in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan.

Some 40 people were also wounded in the blast, which was set off by an improvised explosive device planted under a seat of the vehicle.

The bus was transporting government employees from nearby towns to provincial offices in Peshawar.

Police and rescue personnel look through the wreckage

The explosion occurred in a part of the city that is home to military groups and residences, police official Abbas Majeed Marwa said.

Rescuers had to cut through the bus to pull out several of the victims, according to police official Mubarak Zeb.

He said around eight kilograms (about 17 pounds) of explosives were thought to have been used in the bomb.

The bus was carrying government employees to work

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban and other allied terrorist groups who have been fighting the state for more than a decade.

Peshawar has been the scene of several large Taliban attacks, including the December 2014 massacre at an army school in the city that left 150 people - mostly children - dead.

"We are facing these cowards," provincial spokesman Mushtaq Ghani told reporters at the scene of the blast.