PESHAWAR A bomb ripped through a bus stop in the northwestern town of Kohat on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding 18 others, police said.

'At least two people were killed and 18 others wounded in a remote-controlled bomb blast at the bus station in Tirah bazaar in Kohat,' local police spokesman Fazal Naeem told AFP.

Kohat is an important garrison town on the border with Pakistans tribal areas in North West Frontier Province, where security forces are pressing an offensive against the Taliban across three districts.

Senior police official Ehsanullah Khan said that the explosive device was hidden in a sack and confirmed it was detonated by remote control.

A doctor at the governments main district hospital, who did not want to be identified, said two dead bodies had been brought in after the blast.

The condition of three of the wounded was critical, police officials said, saying the death toll could still rise.

Kohat is south of the provincial capital Peshawar, where a string of bomb blasts last Thursday killed 15 people and wounded hundreds more. — AFP