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Pakistan reels from twin blasts
11/03/2008 14:45 - (SA)
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| Pakistani officials examine the site of a blast at a Lahore office building which killed at least 15 people. (KM Chaudary, AP) |
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Lahore - Massive suicide bombs ripped through a seven-storey police headquarters and a house in Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 200, deepening Pakistan's security crisis as a wave of Islamic militancy sweeps the country.
The two blasts happened about 15 minutes apart in different districts of this eastern city. The first tore the facade from the Federal Investigation Agency building as staff were beginning their working day. It also damaged scores of homes in the neighbourhood.
City police chief Malik Mohammed Iqbal said an explosives-packed car was driven into a parking lot and detonated next to the building - which houses a department of the federal police's anti-terrorism unit - knocking out the walls of several offices and part of a stairwell.
Rarely has a suicide blast in Pakistan caused such serious structural damage to a major government facility.
Twenty-one people were killed, including 16 police, officials said. Mian Muhammad Ejaz, a top city administrator, said over 200 people were wounded. Doctors at Lahore hospitals said the dead included a 3-year-old girl, and 32 students hit by flying debris at a school, near the police building.
Children killed
The second explosion shattered the office of an advertising agency in a residential neighbourhood, about 25km away. Police investigator Tasaddaq Hussain said two children and the wife of the house's gardener were killed.
Police chief Iqbal said both blasts were suicide attacks.
The bombings come amid a spate of violence that authorities are blaming on Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants, spreading beyond their strongholds along the Afghan border, and as the victors of last month's elections prepare to form a new government. Parliament will convene Monday, state media said.
There have been at least seven suicide attacks in the three weeks since the February 18 vote.
- AP
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