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| India-Pakistan |
| Karachi consulate attack kills three |
| 2002-12-05 |
| Three people have been killed in an attack at the Macedonian consulate in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi, police said. The dead - all Pakistani - had been tied up, gagged and killed before an explosion at the office, and doctors said the throats of two of the victims had been slit. One of the men killed was a security guard, but there were no indications as to the identities of the other man and woman. Sounds pretty Islamic, doesn't it? Guess they've run out of Merkins, Brits and Frenchies to attack, so now they're down to attacking Macedonian interests because they're mean to, ummm... Albanians, I guess. It is not clear who is behind the incident, but a local police chief told the French news agency AFP it "appeared to be an act of terrorism". Hmmm... Bomb, check... Throats slit, check... Definitely not philanthropy, so I guess it's terrorism. The blast occurred at about 0100 on Thursday morning in the office of the honorary consul general of Macedonia in an upmarket residential area in Karachi. The consulate building was severely damaged in the explosion. The honorary consul for Macedonia, primarily a commercial post, is the brother of Pakistan's former caretaker prime minister, Moeen Qureshi. The consul, Bilal Qureshi, is quoted by AFP as saying: "I have no enmity with anybody. I don't think that it has anything to do with me personally." A Pak who has no enmity with anybody. I sure believe that one. I wonder what the Birthday Boarhog is gonna bring me this year? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 I can't guarantee it's what set our bomber friend off, but there is a good sized (25% or so) Muslim Albanian minority in Macedonia and a bit of friction and low-level civil war between them and the largely-Orthodox Macedonians. If Osama's still hot about losing Spain a half-millennia ago, that might be enough to get some Pakistani juiced. |
| Posted by: Mark Byron 2002-12-05 11:22:21 |
| #1 Seems like it's the work of our old friends: "An explosion Thursday at Macedonia's consulate offices and the slaying of three people whose bodies were found inside may have been the work of al-Qaida, taking revenge for the killing of seven militant suspects in Macedonia earlier this year, police said. In the ruins of the Macedonian consulate office, scribbled in blue ink on a wall were the words "al-Qaida Pakistan, result of adultery" and a couplet titled "Message for Infidels" that said: "Loyalty will be returned in loyalty. Oppression in oppression. We are men like you. We will do what you will do." The messages, in Pakistan's Urdu language, could signal al-Qaida's involvement - or could have been written by someone else trying to throw investigators off the real culprits' trail, said Tariq Jamil, Karachi's deputy police chief. Counterterrorism police were investigating the possibility that the slayings and subsequent explosion may have been in retaliation for the killing of seven Pakistanis in Macedonia on March 2. Macedonian police opened fire on a van that tried to drive through a roadblock in Skopje, killing seven Pakistanis inside. Police said they found seven Kalashnikov assault rifles, several hand grenades and ammunition in the van. Macedonian officials said the suspects were planning attacks on Western embassies." |
| Posted by: Steve 2002-12-05 11:17:13 |