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| India-Pakistan |
| Car Bombing in Pakistan Injures 12 |
| 2004-01-15 |
| EFL: A car bomb blew up outside a Christian Bible society Thursday, injuring 12 people, damaging the wall of a nearby church and shattering parked cars. The attack in Karachi occurred after police received an anonymous phone warning that the Pakistan Bible Society would be targeted, said police operations chief Tariq Jameel. The lure... Shortly after officers arrived, he said, assailants in a car drove up and lobbed a small explosive device at them before fleeing. The tease... Fifteen minutes later, a bomb hidden in a nearby parked car exploded, Jameel said. And the strike... Twelve people, including six police and paramilitary officers, were injured, said Seemi Jamali, a doctor at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center, where many victims were taken. At least 10 nearby cars were destroyed in the attack. TV footage showed twisted metal and shattered glass littering the street. Firefighters doused the burning cars as thick black smoke billowed into the air in the upscale central Karachi area near many of the city’s top hotels. "We were investigating the first explosion when the second explosion occurred. It was a sudden and huge explosion," said Mohammed Iqbal, a deputy superintendent of the Rangers. Iqbal spoke to The Associated Press from his hospital bed, where he was treated for shrapnel wounds to his right arm, neck and chest. Somebody wanted to kill some cops. Salim Khursheed Khokhar, a local Christian leader, said two workers at the Bible center were injured by flying glass and the wall of the nearby Trinity Church was badly damaged. Shahbaz Bhatti, the head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, said the attack had raised concerns across the country. "This terrorist act has increased the sense of insecurity among Christians. We are shocked, grieved and worried," he said. "These people are hell bent on creating anarchy in the country." Worse, they want a sharia state. In eastern Pakistan, meanwhile, police arrested 15 suspected members of an outlawed Islamic sectarian group for allegedly trying to reorganize. The men were picked up in three separate raids Wednesday in Ghaziabad, an eastern residential neighborhood of Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, said Usman Anwar, a police superintendent in Lahore. Four assault rifles and other weapons were found in the raids, he said. The arrested men belong to Sipah-e-Sahaba, an organization of extremist Sunni Muslims, said Anwar. The group is blamed for the killing of hundreds of Shiite Muslims in recent years. Just let them kill each other off. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 the upscale central Karachi area... Is this an oxymoron, or a relative comparison? |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-1-15 12:41:39 PM |
| #1 the upscale central Karachi area... Is this an oxymoron, or a relative comparison? |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-1-15 12:41:39 PM |