Taliban attack U.S. consulate in Pakistan

? With a complex and deadly assault on the most vivid symbol of U.S. influence in this country’s troubled northwest, the Pakistani Taliban served notice Monday that it remains formidable despite a sustained campaign to wipe it out.

The midday attack on the U.S. Consulate in the city of Peshawar failed in its apparent aim to breach the facility’s gates, but it succeeded in reminding nervous Pakistanis and apprehensive U.S. officials that the militant threat here has not gone away.

Insurgents used at least two vehicle bombs, assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to carry out the assault, which killed eight people and was followed only hours later by a suicide attack that killed 42 people at a rally for a political party that has aligned itself with the United States in opposing religious extremists. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said no American employees were seriously wounded.