Two Karachi car bombs wound at least 20
Wed 26 May, 2004 15:05
By Aamir Ashraf
KARACHI (Reuters) - At least 20 people have been wounded after two car bombs exploded outside the Pakistan-American Cultural Centre in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, a Reuters witness said.
The explosions, less than 15 minutes apart, took place on Wednesday about 100 metres (yards) from the residence of the U.S. consul and about 200 metres from the U.S. consulate, which was the scene of a bloody car bomb attack by Islamic militants in 2002.
Reuters correspondent Aamir Ashraf arrived at the scene shortly after the first blast and just before the second.
The second blast was far stronger than the first and caused the most casualties.
"There was a loud explosion and we were all stunned," Ashraf said of the second explosion. "The car was engulfed in flames and the first car then also caught fire.
"Debris from the car hit people, and I saw people with head cuts and blood coming from their arms and legs. A man standing next to me was hit in the arm and was bleeding.
"We couldn't hear anything afterwards, the blast had deafened us."
Ashraf said he saw no fatalities at the scene.
Another Reuters reporter saw 20 people admitted to hospital. They included eight policemen and six journalists. One policeman and a civilian were seriously hurt.
Pakistan's biggest city has been the scene of frequent acts of Islamic militant violence since President Pervez Musharraf joined the U.S.-led war on terror in 2001.
BOMBS FOLLOW MILITANT ARRESTS
Militants have been known to detonate a small bomb to draw police and others to the scene, followed by a much larger one to maximise the number of casualties.
The blasts came two days after police in Karachi arrested six members of Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami, an al-Qaeda-linked group that tried to assassinate Musharraf in 2002.
"It is sheer terrorism, it looks like they have used locally made bombs," said Manzoor Mughal, a senior police official told Reuters at the scene.
Asked if they could be related to the arrest of the militants, he said: "Yes it could be a reaction, we have arrested so many of them."
Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said the blasts did not appear to have been caused by suicide bombers, unlike an attack earlier this month that killed 15 minority Shi'ite Muslims and wounded 125 in a sectarian attack on a Karachi mosque.
Musharraf has stepped up a battle against Islamic militancy since joining the "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
Militants enraged by the crackdown and Musharraf's backing of the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan have responded with repeated attacks aimed at undermining his government.
Musharraf survived two more assassination attempts in the city of Rawalpindi near Islamabad in December. Western concerns, government officials and religious minorities have also been militant targets in the past three years.
In a speech broadcast on national television on Monday, Musharraf appealed to Pakistan's youth to shun forces of conservative Islam, warning that the country's future was threatened by extremism. |
