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| India-Pakistan |
| Islamabad restaurant blast kills foreigner |
| 2008-03-16 |
| A powerful bomb blast ripped through Italian restaurant Luna Caprese in Islamabad on Saturday, killing a Turkish woman and wounding about 15 other foreigners including US diplomats. “A foreigner was killed in the blast at the restaurant,” Islamabad police chief Shahid Nadeem Baluch told AFP. “We believe it’s a bomb, there is a crater and all such craters are created by explosives.” He told Daily Times that investigations were under way to determine the nature and motive of the blast. Restaurant manager Shaukat told AFP that a group of about a dozen foreigners were eating in the garden at the back of the restaurant when the explosion happened, blowing human limbs into the air. “US embassy personnel were among those wounded,” US embassy spokeswoman Kay Mayfield told Reuters. Federal Government Services Hospital officials said the injured included at least five Americans, a Japanese, a Canadian, a Briton and three Pakistanis. Senior official Dr Iftikhar said two of the three Pakistanis were in critical condition because of severe burn and pellet injures. The foreigners were out of danger, he added. Foreign medical staff, apparently from the US embassy, rushed to the Federal Government Services Hospital to assist the doctors. At least three of the injured, including a Japanese, were taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, officials said. Interior Secretary Kamal Shah ruled out a suicide attack. He told reporters it was too early to say what device was used and what the motive was. Sources close to the initial investigations into the explosion said it was apparently a hand grenade attack carried out by two people, who fled instantly. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Syed Kaleem Imam told Daily Times it someone might have thrown explosives into the restaurant from the adjacent alley, but said the cause of the explosion could only be known after the investigations were complete. Doctors said the dead woman was Inder Baskar, who worked for a Turkish relief agency. The injured were identified as Earl Camp, Ray Pitesk, Bennet Bruce, Trish Gibbs and Rod Sneider from the US; Keith Pierce from the UK; Adan from Canada, Onaish and Motobo from Japan; and Masood, Zahid, Kamran Abbasi, Ajmal and Liaquat from Pakistan. |
| Posted by:Fred |