WORLD> Photo
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WORLD> Photo
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Car bombing kills 30, wounds 250 in Pakistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-27 21:03 LAHORE -- Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices in eastern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing about 30 people and wounding at least 250 in one of the country's deadliest attacks this year.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik suggested the attack could be retaliation for the government's military offensive to rout Taliban militants from the northwestern Swat Valley. Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, sits near the Indian border and is considered a liberal, cultural capital. Assaults there have heightened fears that militancy in nuclear-armed Pakistan is spreading well beyond the northwest region bordering Afghanistan. Wednesday's attack was the third major strike in Lahore in recent months. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the latest bombing. Police said two suspects were detained.
A police building collapsed in the blast, and rescuers rushed to free officers buried in the rubble. The explosion sheared the walls off neighboring buildings in a main business district. The ceilings of operating rooms in a nearby hospital also collapsed, injuring 20 people. Agents from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency were among the dead, a senior official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "The moment the blast happened, everything went dark in front of my eyes," witness Muhammad Ali said. "The way the blast happened, then gunfire, it looked as if there was a battle going on." |
