Sixteen children have been killed in explosions in Pakistan over the weekend - 12 of them while playing with a football which contained a bomb.
The blasts were in the northwest region where violence has increased as Taliban fighters extend their reach.

The football explosion happened in a village in the mountains of Lower Dir. The children, five of them girls, found the ball as they were returning from school. Seven victims belonged to the same family.

Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief, Rehman Malik, blamed the Taliban saying: "The Taliban have exposed their real face by killing innocent children."

He said investigators would check whether the children were targeted because their families had refused to let the Taliban take them for training, including as suicide attackers.