A rchive Date
[ 08-05-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Pakistan ]
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[http://canoe.ca/CNEWSTopNews/pakistan_may08-ap.html
Bus bomb kills 10 in Pakistan
Wednesday, May 8, 2002
KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - A suicide bomber blew up a shuttle bus parked outside a Karachi hotel Wednesday, killing nine French workers and the Pakistani driver, police said. An 11th person, believed to be the bomber, was also killed, and 34 others were injured.
The bus was parked outside the Sheraton Hotel when the bomb went off, tearing a large crater in the road and destroying nearby vehicles.
"The sound was so loud I think you could have heard it from 10 kilometres away," said Munir Sheikh, a police officer who witnessed the explosion.
The scene was horrific, he said. Ambulances struggled to reach the wounded, weaving through the Karachi's congested streets. A teeming industrial capital of 14 million people, it is Pakistan's largest city.
Police said the explosion appeared to have been caused by a second vehicle and was likely a suicide bomber.
"We have recovered a charred body from a car," said Sindh provincial police chief Sayed Kamal Shah.
Police were still trying to determine what kind of explosive was used and how it was detonated, Shah said. It's not known whether the car slammed into the parked bus or whether it was parked nearby and detonated.
"I took some of the bodies to the hospital. The condition was very bad. It was horrible," said Mohammed Rizwan, an ambulance driver.
Pakistan's government denounced the blast as an act of terrorism. No one has claimed responsibility, but suspicion fell on militant Islamic groups angry at Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led coalition's war in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Several foreigners in Pakistan have been killed in brutal attacks claimed by radical Islamists who favoured Afghanistan's collapsed Taliban regime and protested Pakistan's support for the coalition war on terror.
Gen. Rashid Quereshi, a government spokesman, called the explosion an act of terrorism and an attempt to terrorize foreigners in Pakistan.
The French dead were engineers working at the Karachi seaport for a French marine construction company, the French foreign ministry said in Paris. They were part of a team building a submarine Pakistan bought from France, Pakistani officials said.
The New Zealand and Pakistani cricket teams cancelled a five-day match they were to start playing in Karachi on Wednesday. The two teams were staying in a hotel across the street, where windows were blown out by the blast. Jeff Crowe, manager of the New Zealand team, said his group was going home.
"People were screaming in the hotel and I saw a number of dead people lying on the road. It was horrific," said Pakistan cricket captain Waqar Younis.
Westerners in Pakistan have been warned to use caution because of threats from militant Islamic groups protesting the war on terror.
These radical groups were strong supporters of the Taliban regime that collapsed under the coalition's assault.
Musharraf banned five extremist Muslim groups in January and two months later, grenade-hurling terrorists killed five worshippers in an Islamabad church attended by members of the foreign community.
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in southern Karachi in January and killed by radical Islamists protesting the detention of Taliban and al-Qaida in Guantanamo, Cuba. Four men accused of the killing are currently on trial in the Sindh city of Hyderabad, about 60 miles north of Karachi.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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