Female Suicide Bombers: The New Face of the Taliban in Pakistan?

The Pakistani Taliban group has claimed responsibility for a rare female suicide attack and another bombing against police to "avenge" military operations in the lawless tribal belt on Friday.

Earlier this week, a teenage girl blew herself up near a police check post killing another woman that was with her.

A second attack with a bomb planted in a push cart killed six people in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The city of Peshawar, is considered by analysts to be a Taliban "hotspot" and is known for still remaining an area where Taliban and al-Qaeda militancy is high.

The attacks by the two women suicide bomber marked the third time police have confirmed a woman suicide attacker in Pakistan.

The country has been particularly affected by radical Islamist insurgency and Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked bombers have killed 4,500 people since 2007, analysts say.

The insurgency is continually threatening the stability of the government, which the militants say should have never accepted to work hand in hand with the U.S. to fight off the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Tensions against the Pakistani government and the militants were also bolstered by leaked American diplomatic cables that showed the government approved US drone strikes on Pakistani soil, which was previously officially denied by officials.

"This was a female suicide bomber aged around 17 or 18 who threw a hand grenade on the police check post, 20 metres away from the site of the first blast, and then blew herself up," police official Shafqat Malik told AFP.

"Her vest did not explode completely. She was killed and another woman was also killed, and three policemen were injured," Malik said.

Initial reports stated the second woman also carried explosives, but police and medics later said she was not.

"The other woman is more than 60 years old. Her face is completely disfigured and beyond identification. Her body has no sign of wearing a suicide vest. We feel that she was just a passer-by," Doctor Rahim Afridi told AFP.

Taliban attacks in Pakistan have increased in the last few months and women now seem to be used as a tool by the Taliban. In late June, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for its first married-couple bombing when an Uzbek man and woman carried out a suicide attack on a police station that killed 10 officers.

More worryingly, confirming the new phenomenon, the head of the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal district of Mohmand, an area prone to insurgencies, said using women bombers was part of a new strategy.

"It is part of our strategy and in war strategies keep on changing," Omar Khalid told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"The blasts were in reaction to the current military operation in the tribal areas," he said, threatening further attacks.

The new strategy used by the Taliban only further confirms how the movement objectifies women by now putting them at the forefront of their suicide bombing tactics.