Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- A suspected suicide bomber struck a police post in Pakistan’s northwestern Peshawar city, killing at least four people in the second attack there in two days.

Three people were wounded in the bombing, police officer Saheb Zada said in a phone interview from the city, the capital of North-West Frontier Province. The bomber detonated the explosives on the city’s ring road, Agence France-Presse reported. Thirteen people died yesterday in Peshawar as a suicide bomber attacked a crowded cattle market. The Tehreek-e- Taliban claimed responsibility.

Militants in Pakistan have killed more than 300 people in bombings and attacks since the army last month began its biggest offensive aimed at driving pro-Taliban fighters from the South Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan blames the Tehreek-e-Taliban faction, being targeted by troops, helicopters and fighter jets, for 80 percent of terrorist attacks on its territory.

Late yesterday, police killed a suspected terrorist planning an attack in the capital, Islamabad, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported, citing Bin Yameen, deputy inspector-general of police in the city. Security forces are hunting for two accomplices who escaped in a car, he said.

The would-be bomber in Islamabad was killed when he jumped from a car and tried to attack the police post, Yameen said, according to APP. “A big terrorist bid was foiled,” he said.

‘Barbaric’ Bombing

Yesterday’s Peshawar bombing killed Abdul Malik, a local official, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the minister of information in the provincial government, said. Malik was a former Taliban supporter who became an anti-militant mayor, AFP said.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered an inquiry into the attack on the cattle market, describing the bombing as “barbaric,” according to APP.

Pakistan says it wants to complete its operation in South Waziristan before winter starts in the region next month. Four Pakistani soldiers were killed in a militant rocket attack late on Sunday in the town of Makin, AFP reported citing an army statement. Eight militants died in fighting over the last 24 hours, it said. Independent accounts of the fighting are hard to obtain as journalists have been forced from the region by the government and militants.

Makin was a Taliban stronghold close to where former Tehreek-e-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud had a house, which the military said Friday had been demolished, the agency said.

Taliban fighters are fleeing into South Waziristan’s mountains, the army said last week. The Taliban says its forces are falling back deliberately to draw soldiers into the region and engage them in a long war.

The capture of Taliban-controlled towns may have limited strategic value unless soldiers pursue militants into their mountain hideouts, ex-army brigadier Javed Hussain, a former Special Forces commander, said last week.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anwar Shakir in Karachi at ashakir1@bloomberg.net; Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 9, 2009 05:36 EST