The attacks deepened the sense of crisis in Pakistan amid political uncertainty ahead of elections.
The bombings were not immediately claimed by any group but officials suggested they may have been by Islamist militants, possibly in response to Pakistani military operations near the Afghan border. The first bomb went off on the army bus as it travelled early on Tuesday morning through the city, which is just south of Islamabad and home to the headquarters of Pakistan’s army.
Television pictures showed the blast had ripped the roof off the bus and blown out the windows. Pakistan’s Deputy Information Minister, Tariq Azim Khan, said a suicide bomber had apparently managed to board the bus.
The second bomb, on a motorcycle, went off within moments in a nearby commercial district, killing several more people. Officials did not give separate casualty figures but said the majority of the victims were on the bus.
“Both are terrorist acts, and all the dead and wounded are Pakistanis,” the Reuters news agency quoted a spokesman, Major-General Waheed Arshad, as saying. “Both were suicide bombings but I have no detail about how they were carried out.”
Pakistan has had an increase in militant violence since July when a pact broke down with Islamists in the Waziristan region on the Afghan border. The country’s religious affairs minister, Ejaz-ul Haq, said the attacks could be a reaction to the war in Afghanistan, and to Pakistani operations in militant strongholds near the frontier. “We are the frontline state in the war against terror and we are suffering the most,” he told Dawn News television. Rawalpindi has had several attacks, including two bombs aimed at the President, General Pervez Musharraf, that killed at least 16 people including the bombers in December 2003.
Gen Musharraf is under pressure from Washington to crack down on extremists in the border region.