KARACHI: A Taleban suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives Monday outside the home of a senior police officer tasked with cracking down on militants in Pakistan's largest city. The blast killed at least eight people and left a crater 10 feet deep, police said.| Martyrs, all, except for the suicide murderer, who no doubt is just joining Himmler and Osama bin Laden in hell, according to the latest in jihad theory. |
"This is a cowardly act," Aslam told local television. "I'm not scared. I will not spare them."
The eight people killed included six policemen guarding Aslam's house as well as a schoolteacher and her son who were passing by, said Karachi police chief Saud Mirza. He estimated that at least 300 kg of explosives were used in the attack.
The death toll could have been even worse if it had happened a few minutes later when many children would have been headed to schools located near Aslam's house in the Defense neighborhood of Karachi, an upscale residential area that rarely experiences militant attacks or other forms of violence that plague the city.
"Thank God it was half an hour before school time," said former Pakistani cricket team captain Moin Khan, who passed by the site of the attack shortly after the blast.
"It was horrible. I saw four bodies," said Khan. "Broken pieces of vehicles were scattered more than 100 feet."
Local television footage showed extensive damage from the blast. The fronts of several two-story concrete buildings were totally blown away. Rubble littered the streets amid the burned wreckage of cars hit by the explosion.
Aslam is a top police officer in the Crime Investigation Department, which works to arrest Taleban fighters and other militants in Karachi.
Pakistani Taleban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for Monday's attack. "We will continue targeting all such officers who are involved in the killing of our comrades," Ahsan told The Associated Press.