Posted on 06/14/2002 3:22:03 AM PDT by kattracks
Eight people were killed in a powerful car bomb attack on the US consulate in the southern port city of Karachi, and dozens were injured including six consulate staff, officials said.
"It was a car bomb... The blast was so powerful that the vehicle flew from one side of the road to the other side of the road," city police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP Friday. "It appears to be a suicide bomber."
A US embassy spokesman in Islamabad said that six consulate employees, including one American and five Pakistani staff, "sustained minor injuries when struck by flying debris".
"Many windows in the consulate have been blown out and the building has sustained structural damage. The extent of that damage is not yet known," he said.
The US embassy was not able to confirm police reports that a consulate guard was killed in the attack, he said.
Pakistani officials said that the suicide bomber and a woman were also believed to be among the casualties, and Jamil said that an unknown number of police officers on duty outside the building were injured.
A police source at the scene told AFP that eight bodies had been found.
"Five bodies are intact and have been sent to hospital, and there are three more and the body parts are lying in different places," the source said.
"They are at three different places, virtually ripped apart."
Officials at Karachi's Jinnah Hospital said 26 people injured in the blast had been admitted for treatment and were in a serious condition.
Police officers at the scene said the vehicle used in the attack was a small, high-roofed Suzuki van which had been travelling along the same road that the consulate is situated on.
The blast was detonated when it reached the corner of the compound, and the huge explosion that followed destroyed part of the perimeter wall of the consulate, but left the main gate intact.
A deep crater was blasted into the road immediately next to the perimeter wall and the vehicle exploded into pieces, some of which were thrown onto the other side of the road and into a park facing the consulate.
Shock waves from the car bomb damaged property in a one kilometre (half-mile) radius of the area, blowing out shop windows and car windscreens and leaving shards of glass carpeted on the ground.
More than a dozen cars in the immediate vicinity were badly damaged.
The US embassy ordered non-essential staff and families to leave Pakistan shortly after a March 17 grenade attack on a church in the diplomatic enclave of Islamabad which left five died, including two Americans.
Westerners were targeted again when a car loaded with explosives ploughed into a minibus at the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, killing 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis.
No group has claimed responsibility, but Islamic extremists linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network have been named as suspects.
A Western diplomat in Islamabad said it seemed obvious there was a link between the Sheraton attack and the latest car-bombing.
"I think most probably there is some link between the two," he said. "This is really a scenario which we had feared and which now has happened.
"To have a bomb detonated in front of a US consulate is something which unfortunately could have been expected, even though the embassies are being very careful."
The diplomat said that he did not expect his own mission or those of other nations to announce upgraded security precautions in Pakistan in the wake of the attack.
"We have already significantly strengthened the security measures and we have not lightened them over the past weeks, so we remain at maximum security measures."
"But I think it might push (western) families who are still here to leave and we have advised our nationals who are in the country to leave," he said, referring to the exodus of expatriates in recent weeks.
Karachi has a history of political, ethnic and sectarian violence, which has left over 4,000 people dead in the past five years.
Ya think? Who else would it be?
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