ISLAMABAD -- At least 35 people were killed yesterday in a bombing near Pakistan's military headquarters in Rawalpindi, with army personnel among the victims.

The suicide blast by Islamic extremists at a small shopping center seemed aimed at a line of people who were waiting to withdraw their salaries from a bank branch on the ground floor. Soldiers were also in the line.

Also, news reports say at least 15 people were injured when a bomb went off near a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Lahore.

City police chief Pervaiz Rathor confirmed that a bomb exploded yesterday but had no information on casualties.

Mohammad Saeed, a police constable, told Geo TV he saw a car approach the checkpoint and then explode

A ferocious wave of terrorist attacks has hit Pakistan, apparently in retaliation for the launch last month of a military offensive in the South Waziristan region, in the tribal area along the Afghan border. The region is the base of the country's Taliban movement, which is behind most of the bloodshed, and is thought to be controlled by al-Qaida. More than 300 people have been killed in the attacks since the beginning of October.

U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials increasingly are concerned by the attacks in and around the Pakistani capital of Islamabad and in the country's central Punjab province. These attacks, they fear, may reflect growing ties between militant groups on the Afghan border and others in the heart of the country, some of which the Pakistani military and intelligence service have nurtured as weapons against archrival India.

In Rawalpindi, bodies of the dead and wounded were strewn across the parking lot and the road in front of the shopping center yesterday, women and children among them, witnesses said. Pools of blood and the twisted metal remains of vehicles marked the spot after the bodies were removed. Some 65 people were wounded.

The explosion was a few hundred yards from the military headquarters complex, and the bank may have been the nearest for army personnel to use. The Ministry of Defense is also nearby. Given that it was the first workday of the month, many people would have just had their wages and pensions paid into their accounts. The capital, Islamabad, is a 25-minute drive away.

Four soldiers were killed in the attack and nine were wounded, according to the army's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.

Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in a statement that "such barbaric, inhuman and un-Islamic terrorist acts only strengthen our resolve to fight terrorism with more vitality."

A bombing last week at a market in Peshawar killed more than 115 people.

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