Pakistan suicide bomber uses candy to get past guards

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A man convinced security guards Thursday that he was delivering a box of sweets to Islamabad police headquarters before setting off a suicide blast, a police official told CNN.

The blast, which happened outside officers' living quarters, killed the bomber and injured 17 others, police official Mahmood Solaiman said.

Guards allowed the bomber through a security gate. The attacker drove up a row of buildings before detonating his explosives.

The blast crumbled one side of the three-story barracks, and the victims were both inside and outside the building, Solaiman said. Watch footage from blast site »

The explosion happened about 6 miles from the parliament building, where military officials were briefing lawmakers about the deteriorating security situation in the country and an ongoing military offensive to flush out extremists in the country's tribal regions.

Many of the officers who reside in the building were at the parliament grounds at the time, said Asghar Raza Gardezi, the inspector general of police in Islamabad.

Islamabad has been on edge for several weeks since a suicide truck bombing late last month at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad killed more than 50 people and wounded more than 250.

Pakistan's military continues to battle militants in its tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.

Also Thursday, a suspected U.S. missile fired from an unmanned drone struck a village in North Waziristan, killing eight people, military sources said Thursday.

The strike happened around 9:30 p.m. local time in the village of Tapi, the sources said.

The United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from drones, which are controlled remotely.

Pakistan has said it will not allow foreign nations to violate its sovereignty to pursue terrorists. The statement came after a U.S. ground operation last month that left several civilians dead and rankled relations between the two countries.

"We will not tolerate the violation of our sovereignty and territorial integrity by any power in the name of combating terrorism," Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in mid-September in his first speech to Parliament as president.

The U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces in Afghanistan have been seeking a way to effectively battle militants who are launching attacks from Pakistan's side of the border. They have become frustrated with Islamabad over the years, saying it is not being proactive enough against militants, a claim Pakistan denies.

A Pakistani army source said Pakistani fighter jets on Thursday targeted strongholds of banned religious leader Maulana Fazlullah in Swat, a mountainous region of the North West Frontier Province that was once a popular tourist destination.

The source said 21 militants were killed in the air assault.

Fazlullah is head of Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), a banned hard-line Islamic group. He is known as "Radio Mullah" because of his inflammatory radio broadcasts. Fazlullah has said his goal is to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in northwest Pakistan.

He took over leadership of TNSM when his father, pro-Taliban leader Sufi Mohammed, was in jail for recruiting thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Mohammed was released from jail earlier this year in an effort by Pakistan's new civilian government to reach a broader peace agreement with tribal leaders.

Mohammed had reportedly agreed to cooperate with the government upon his release in April after serving a six-year sentence.

Also in Pakistan's tribal region, a roadside bomb killed seven people -- including three children -- on Thursday in the Upper Dir district of North West Frontier Province, a local police official said.

The remote bomb detonated as a prisoner transport bus was taking prisoners to the Dir prison, Dir police officer Mohammad Ishfaq said.

The blast caused the prisoner bus to hit an oncoming school bus, killing three children, he said. Eleven bystanders were injured.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

CNN's Reza Sayah and Zein Basravi and journalist Janullah Hashimzada contributed to this report.

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