Posted on 05/07/2002 10:06:18 PM PDT by HAL9000
Attack In Karachi: eleven died, including nine French
Wednesday May 08, 2002 - 4h40 GMT
KARACHI (Pakistan), May 8 (AFP) - an attack with the booby-trapped car perpetrated against a bus made eleven died, according to the police force, including nine French nationals, and 18 wounded Wednesday morning in front of the Sheraton hotels and Pearl Continental of Karachi, in the south of Pakistan.
According to the police force, it is about an attack commits suicide and its authors could be with the number of the two Pakistani victims of the attack.
The attack aimed at a bus of the direction of the shipbuilding (DCN), announced the embassy of France with Islamabad.
Sixteen French appear among the 18 wounded ones, specified the head of the police force of Karachi, Asad Jehangir (well: Asad).
The bus was used for transport of the personnel of the DCN, which employs some 80 French nationals in Karachi, the large port of the south of Pakistan and economic capital of the country. The bus was used for the collecting of the personnel placed in various town halls.
The DCN is a subsidiary company of the general direction of armament (DGA), company belonging at the French State.
According to good sources' in Karachi, the DCN employed there approximately 80 French nationals, who worked with the construction of a Pakistani submarine of type Agosta 90-B.
The head of the police force of Karachi explained that the explosion had occurred when a booby-trapped car had struck the bus close to the two hotels.
"a car struck the bus and exploded. We think that the author of the attack was inside ", said Mr. Jehangir.
The explosion, very violent, scattered human pieces on a broad perimeter and the frontage of the hotel was also damaged. The bus was tiny room to a cluster of twisted scrap.
The sector was immediately buckled by the police force. Police officers on the spot told a scene of devastation.
"the site is strewn with piece and bloodstains of body. There are glares of glass everywhere. Many cars which were parked in front of the hotel are also damaged, "said to the AFP a police person in charge, Zubair Mahmood.
According to certain witnesses questioned in Karachi, the deflagration was heard with several kilometers with the round.
The foreign community in Pakistan had been aimed by a preceding attack, March 17 with Islamabad, when an attack with the grenade made five had died and more than 40 wounded in a Protestant church of the diplomatic district of the capital.
Two American, wife and daughter-in-law of a diplomat, an Afghan, Pakistani and a man not identified, perhaps the author of the attack, had been killed. The majority of the casualties were foreign.
The attack was never asserted but had been clearly interpreted like aiming at the Western community after the rallying of Pakistan, with the autumn, the coalition anti-terrorist installation by the United States after the attacks of September 11.
Two European diplomatic vehicles of Islamabad, whose buses of transport of the personnel of the embassy of Great Britain had also been trapped at the beginning of the year by artisanal bombs, which had not however made any victim.
12 French nationals among 15 killed in Pakistan bomb blast
Islamabad, May 8, IRNA -- At least 12 French marines and two
Pakistanis were killed and 25 others were injured in a suicide bomb
attack in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Wednesday, officials
and witnesses said.
The French nationals, working on a submarine at Karachi, were
coming to Hotel Sheraton in a 45-seater bus when a car hit the bus
outside the hotel. The submarines belonged to the French DCN company,
which manufactures submarines.
The suicide bomber was in the car, believed to be full of
explosives. Both the car and the bus were totally destroyed.
The injured, 10 of them serious, were shifted to the Karachi
Naval Hospital. The bus belonged to the Pakistan navy.
Karachi Police Chief Asad Jehangir told reporters that a suicide
bomber blew up the bus at 8:30 am in the southern parts of Karachi.
Most of the big hotels are located in the southern parts of
the city.
It was reported earlier that those killed in the blast were
Germans.
An eyewitness, Azam Gondal, told IRNA from Karachi that the blast
was so powerful that he heard the explosion four kilometers away from
Sheraton hotel.
No one has claimed responsibility of the incident. The blast
damaged parts of the first floor of the hotel. It also smashed windows
of several nearby buildings.
Jehangir said police are now investigating to determine who were
behind the blast.
Mian Mohammad Soomro, governor of the southern Sindh province of
which Karachi is the capital, condemned the blast and said that the
anti-Pakistani forces are out to sabotage the government efforts to
create a conducive atmosphere for investment.
He issued directives to the authorities to use all their resources
to arrest the culprits.
TK/MMZ/LS
End
::irna 09:23
-ccm
Europeans should wake up right now! They have growing Muslim population throughout in Europe, and things are only going to get worse, not better.
Which is pretty much why far right extremists(that's what the media told me) are beginning to do well in elections.
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