At least seven people were killed and 16 wounded in a bomb attack in Pakistan yesterday that appeared to be the second attempt to kill President Musharraf this month.

Musharraf was not wounded by the two powerful blasts in Rawalpindi city that went off on a road just after his convoy passed but his limousine was damaged, officials said. ?At least seven dead bodies have been brought into hospital along with 16 wounded,? said an official of the Edhi Welfare Foun-dation, a private emergency service. ?More are on the way.?

Musharraf narrowly escaped an attack on the same road on December 14 when a series of explosions ripped apart a bridge just after his motorcade passed over it. ?The president and all his companions are safe and sound,? Major-General Shaukat Sultan told Reuters.

Authorities suspect Islamic militants, who Musharraf has targeted as part of his contribution to the US-led war on terror, were behind the December 14 attack.

Yesterday?s blasts were thought to have been caused by a suicide bomber who had been travelling in a small vehicle, a senior police officer said. Army and police cordoned off the scene, a main road connecting Rawalpindi with the nearby capital Islamabad. The route is used almost daily by Musharraf to drive from his residence to the capital.

At least two blasts blew out windows in a radius of about two kilometres along the road, showering the area with broken glass. Body parts and pieces of mangled vehicles were scattered around. ?The explosions shook my house. A body has been thrown just in front of my house,? a resident said shortly after the attack.

The blasts came a day Musharraf reached an agreement with hardline Islamic opponents to step down as Chief of Army Staff by the end of 2004 in order to resolve a long-running row that has virtually paralysed Parliament.