Asia-Pacific

Bomb kills 16 in SW Pakistan

(AP)
Updated: 2007-02-17 20:09
Large Medium Small
QUETTA, Pakistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a courtroom in troubled southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing a judge and 14 others, police and other officials said, as they announced the arrests of three people who they accused of planning similar attacks.

At least 24 people were wounded in the suicide attack, said Jam Mohammed Yousaf, the top elected official in the country's impoverished Baluchistan province of which Quetta is the capital.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack at the District Courts complex in Quetta that killed civil judge Abdul Wahid, five lawyers and some of the relatives of prisoners on trial, Yousaf said.

Information was not immediately available about who was on trial and on what charges, at the time of the blast.

Baluchistan police chief Tariq Khosa said the attacker was included among the 16 dead.

The blast shattered windows and destroyed furniture inside the courtroom. Shoes, strips of clothing and body parts littered the scene.

Police collected the body parts and the head of the suicide bomber, as bomb disposal experts were investigating the exact nature of the attack, said city police chief Rauf Khan.

Shortly after the attack, the lawyer and relatives of the dead and injured gathered outside the District Court complex and chanted anti-government slogans.

Hundreds of relatives thronged a main government hospital where the dead and wounded were taken, according to witnesses, who said police were trying to pacify the emotional people.

More police patrols were immediately apparent on the streets of the city, but Khan said the situation was under control.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz _ who was visiting the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday to meet with families of some police officials who died in a recent suicide attack _ condemned the bombing.

"It is an attack on humanity," he said.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao also termed the attack "an act of terrorism" but he would not say who might have been behind it.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and has witnessed scores of terrorist attacks since it threw its support behind Washington following the September 11, 2001, attacks in America.

The latest attack came a day after police announced they had arrested five suspected militants from the southern city of Karachi and Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, and that the suspects were planning suicide attacks on foreigners and minority Shiite Muslims.

Also Saturday, police in southern Pakistan said they arrested three Islamic militants who were planning suicide attacks to take place at forthcoming Shiite Muslim gatherings in Sindh province.

"We have foiled possible suicide attacks by arresting three terrorists and seizing suicide belts, hand grenades, explosives and guns from their hideout," said Mazhar Sheikh, the police chief in Sukkur, a city about 500 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Karachi, the provincial capital.

The arrests were made late Friday, he said.

Baluchistan has also been the scene of scores of rocket and bomb attacks, most blamed on nationalists, who have been pressuring the central government for more royalties for gas extracted in the province.

Authorities have recently arrested hundreds of suspected Taliban in Quetta and elsewhere as part of a campaign aimed at deporting Afghans living in Pakistan without valid travel documents.

Associated Press Writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.

分享按钮