GUN-TOTING SUICIDE attackers exploded a giant bomb in the centre of Lahore yesterday, killing at least 24 people and wounding about 300 in a spectacular assault aimed at the offices of the police chief and Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, the third in the city in as many months, but Pakistanis have been braced for violent retaliation since the army launched a sweeping operation against the Taliban in the Swat valley three weeks ago.
“These terrorists were defeated in FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and Swat and now they have come here,” interior minister Rehman Malik said. “This is a war, and it is a war for our survival.”
As Mr Malik spoke, rescuers were scrambling to pull the dead and wounded from the wreckage of destroyed buildings. Twelve police officers and one child were among the fatalities, a television station reported.
Sajjad Bhutto, a senior government official, said four men had leapt from a car that pulled up outside a police building near the ISI headquarters. The men, described as young and clean-shaven, started shooting. Guards outside the spy agency returned fire, sparking a short gun battle that ended when the car, which had crashed into a security barrier, exploded.
The 100kg blast levelled an emergency response building across the street and sheared a wall from the ISI office, where two intelligence officers and six others were killed. It left a scene of devastation along the Mall, a tree-lined, colonial-era thoroughfare. A petrol station was destroyed, and broken glass and crushed vehicles littered the road. Later distraught relatives sought family members.
The attack was no surprise, said Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based defence analyst. “We were expecting there would be some kind of retaliation,” he said, drawing a link with the operations in Swat. “The surprise was that it was such a massive attack.”
Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, has become a favoured target for militants. In March, gunmen attacked a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team, killing seven people. Weeks later, other gunmen mounted a siege of a police training centre in the outskirts, killing several recruits.
Lahore is the heartland of Pakistan’s military and cultural elite. Most of the army is recruited from the surrounding agricultural plains, and the city is the base of powerful politicians, including the opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif.
Yesterday’s blast coincided with a visit to Islamabad by Gen David Petraeus, head of the US central command. – (Guardian service)
The number of displaced people as a result of the Pakistani government’s action in Swat has reached almost 2.4 million, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.
In parts of the northwest, many people are still reportedly stranded as a government curfew is only lifted for a few hours a day and roads become quickly congested, said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. – (Reuters)