20 Pakistanis Killed in Karachi Suicide Bombing & Other Attacks

January 8, 2010

Suicide attack, violence in Pakistan claim 20 people

ISLAMABAD, Jan. 8, 2010 (Xinhua) --

At least 20 people, including two policemen, were killed in a suicide attack on the base of an outlawed militant group and incidents of firing in Pakistan on Friday, officials said.

    A bomber exploded his device stripped on his body in the officeof Lashkar-e-Islam group in Khyber tribal agency of northwest Pakistan, officials said.

    The attacker struck members of the group when they were entering mosque in the base, they said. Five people were killed and five others were injured, a leader of the group Qari Minhaj said.

    Minhaj said that three children and a passerby were among those killed in the attack.

    In another bomb attack two people were killed and two others were injured in a roadside bomb blast in nearby Bajaur tribal region. A vehicle was hit by the bomb at Charmang area, an official said.

    In the southwestern city of Quetta, unidentified gunmen shot dead two police of an investigative agency on Friday, police said.

    The members of Crimes Investigation Department came under attack when they were coming from night duty. No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

    In Karachi, five people were killed in firing in Liyari locality of the port city, police said.

    Unidentified motorcyclists opened fire at the people after funeral procession for seven persons who were killed in the city on Thursday, police said.

    Also in Karachi in early Friday morning, six people were killed and several injured in an explosion near a mosque in Baldia Town of the commercial center. 

Editor: Mu Xuequan

Six killed in explosion in Karachi

Friday January 08, 2010 (1104 PST)

Pak Tribune, KARACHI:

Six people were killed on Friday when an explosion flattened a house being used by militants in Pakistan`s economic hub Karachi, police said, adding that the blast appeared to have been accidental.

Gun, grenades and suicide vests were recovered from the house in a western Karachi neighbourhood, and police said they were working to determine the exact cause of the blast and the circumstances surrounding it.

“There was a blast in a house in Baldia Town in which six people were killed. The house collapsed,” said senior police official Abdul Majeed Dasti.

He said hand grenades, a Kalashnikov rifle and suicide vests were also found at the scene, while city police chief Waseem Ahmad told AFP that the explosives appeared to have been detonated unintentionally.

“It seems that explosives which were stored in the house caused the explosion in which six people were killed,” he said.

“It seems that the house was being used by terrorists. We are taking utmost care in removing the rubble. Bomb disposal officials have arrived at the scene to determine the exact nature of the explosion.” Police could not immediately say whether all six people killed were in the house at the time or were passers-by.

Forty-three people were killed in Karachi -- Pakistan`s largest city -- in a bombing blamed on militants during a religious procession last month.

Suicide bombings and attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups have intensified in recent months as the military pursues an aggressive offensive to quash insurgent strongholds along the Afghan border.

Nearly 2,900 people have been killed in attacks in Pakistan since the militant violence intensified in July 2007, with the Taliban increasingly hitting big cities and civilian targets.

Karachi, a cosmopolitan port city far away from the troubled northwest, had largely been spared the bloodshed, but there are fears that militants are using the cover of a city of about 14 million people to regroup and plan attacks.