Suicide bombers kill 39 in Pakistan
Written by on March 12th, 2010 in Latest News.
Two suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other Friday, killing at least 39 people in Lahore, Pakistan, police said. Nearly 100 people were also wounded.
It was the second attack in the city this week, indicating Islamist militants may be stepping up assaults in Pakistan after a period of relative cool.
The bombers struck RA Bazaar, a residential and commercial neighbourhood where several security agencies have facilities. Pakistani TV channels showed security forces swarming the area as bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances.
Six security personnel were among the dead, senior police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq said.
Eyewitness Afzal Awan said he saw several people, some missing limbs, lying in pools of blood after an enormous explosion.
“I saw smoke rising everywhere,” Awan told reporters. “A lot of people were crying.”
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion quickly fell on the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The militants are believed to have been behind numerous attacks in Pakistan over the last several years, including a series of strikes that started in October and killed some 600 people in apparent retaliation for an army offensive along the Afghan border.
More recent attacks had been smaller and confined to remote regions near Afghanistan, but on Monday, a suicide car bomber struck a building in Lahore where police interrogated high-value suspects.
At least 13 people died and dozens were wounded in the attack, for which the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.
The violence comes amid reports of a Pakistani crackdown on Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives using its soil. Among the militants known to have been arrested is the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
