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Pakistan attacks kill up to 33
19/07/2007 12:12 - (SA)
Karachi - A bomb hit a convoy of Chinese workers in southern Pakistan and a suicide attacker drove into a police academy in the north, killing up to 33 people as violence swept further across the country.
A bus carrying about 10 Chinese engineers and workers had just passed, police said, when the remote-controlled bomb exploded in the centre of Hub, a town just north of the port city of Karachi.
Hub Mayor Jamil Gickhi said 26 people had been killed. Officials said they included police guards who had been escorting the convoy and civilians along the road.
About 30 persons, many in critical condition, were evacuated to a Karachi hospital, said Dr Tariq Kamal. The Chinese escaped unharmed.
An AP Television News reporter on the scene said the attack took place in the town's main bazaar area and shattered more than 20 roadside shops. Several cars rammed into one another in the chaos that followed the explosion.
Suicide bomb
The suicide car bomber detonated his explosives when guards prevented him from entering the parade ground of the police academy in Hangu, 70km southwest of the provincial capital Peshawar, academy chief Attaullah Wazir said.
The bomber killed six bystanders and one policeman, and another 24 people were injured, Wazir said. The attacker also died when the car was torn apart by the explosion.
Suicide attacks, bombings and shootings blamed on Islamic extremists and a bloody army siege of radicals in Islamabad's Red Mosque have killed more than 240 people in Pakistan so far this month, stirring doubts about the country's stability.
Much of the violence has been in North West Frontier Province, especially the frontier region of North Waziristan, where pro-Taliban militants last weekend declared the end of a ten-month-old peace deal.
On Wednesday, militants bombed and strafed an army convoy near Miran Shah, North Waziristan's main town, killing 17 troops. At least eight militants died in clashes with security forces in the area.
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