PESHAWAR, Oct 28 (AFP): A huge car bomb killed 92 people in Pakistan and Taliban gunmen struck a UN hostel in Afghanistan Wednesday in a wave of bloodshed that underscored the challenges to US policy in the region.

The attacks hit the neighbouring countries as US Secretary of State Hillary

Clinton visited Pakistan, and days before President Barack Obama was to decide whether to hurl thousands more troops into an increasingly deadly theatre.

The Pakistan blast ripped through a bazaar in northwestern Peshawar, the gateway city to the Al-Qaeda-infested Afghan border, killing many women and children in one of the nuclear-armed state's deadliest attacks.

In Kabul, Taliban suicide attackers stormed a guesthouse and killed nine people, including six foreign UN staff, an attack the Islamist militia said signalled a bloody countdown to new Afghan presidential elections next week.