US President George W Bush has vowed to help find the people behind a grenade attack on a Pakistan church that killed five people, including a US diplomat's wife and daughter, and wounded more than 40.
There was no claim of responsibility for yesterday's attack in the capital, Islamabad, but suspicion fell on hardline Islamic groups opposed to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's support for the US-led war on terror after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The killings follow the kidnapping and execution of another US citizen in Pakistan, Wall Street Journalreporter Daniel Pearl, who was abducted on January 23rd.
Forty-two people from various nations were wounded in the church attack and the death toll could rise. Officials said six or seven people suffered serious injuries.
The 60 to 70 people at the Protestant International Church, a popular place of worship for foreigners in Islamabad, had sung some hymns and were listening to the sermon.
The calm was shattered by a blast at the back of the church and one man rushed up the aisle brandishing grenades and shouting, witnesses said.
Worshippers dived for cover as five or six explosions ripped through the church, filling it with smoke and splattering the walls and ceiling with blood.
Mr Musharraf - who has banned seven militant groups and ordered the detention of hundreds of activists since September 11th - called the attack a "ghastly act of terrorism", according to the state news agency.
A government statement said a lone attacker killed the five churchgoers - two Americans, one Pakistani, one Afghan and an unidentified person whose body was torn to pieces.
Yesterday’s attack follows the killing of 15 worshippers and a police guard at St Dominic's church in the city of Bahawalpur in October, the worst assault on Pakistan's small Christian minority since independence from Britain in 1947.