Bomb rips through bus killing at least 10 foreigners, another 20 injured (KARACHI, Pakistan)

A bomb ripped through a bus Wednesday killing at least 10 people, all believed to be foreigners heading to a hotel from the the airport, police said.

Another 20 people were injured when the powerful bomb shattered the bus, they said. It's believed that many of the passengers were Germans.

A friend of mine from a west African country who is a very friendly and accepting person told me he felt Muslims were impossible to live with and that if there were another attack like 9/11 in the US we would have to kill all of them that were in the country.I don't think that way about any group of people based on ethnicity or religion,but here was a guy who grew up in a country with a large Muslim minority and he felt they were a threat to anyone who wouldn't follow their beliefs.I think the radical Islamists have got the ordinary Muslims scared sh::less and afraid to oppose them in any meaningful way,except in Turkey where the pro-Western Kemalists run the Armed Forces.Look at Algeria-the Islamists kill people by the bushel basket and the people they are killing are all Muslims-everyone else has left.

The latest off the AP:

(05-07) 21:17 PDT KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) --

A powerful bomb destroyed a shuttle bus in Karachi, Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least 10 Europeans, police said. Another 25 people were injured, some of them seriously.

The 45-seat bus was parked outside the Sheraton Hotel when the bomb went off, tearing a large crater in the road.

Hotel workers first told police that the bus was taking German visitors to the Karachi seaport. But the German consulate and foreign ministry said they were unaware of any German deaths.

No Americans were believed to be involved, said Karachi Police Inspector Sayed Kamal Shah.

"We are still trying to identify the nationalities. They were all foreigners," Shah said. "There may also have been French nationals as well."

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The explosion destroyed several vehicles in the area, and Shah said it was possible a second vehicle may have been involved in the blast. Police on the scene have not been able to reconstruct the incident with complete accuracy, he said.

Initially police said the bus had returned to the hotel from the Karachi airport. But later they said the bus was bound for the seaport and had been parked on the street waiting for a tardy passenger when the bomb exploded.

"The sound was so loud I think you could have heard it from 10 kilometers (six miles) away," said Munir Sheikh, a police officer who was standing nearby.

Ambulances struggled to reach the scene through the congested early morning traffic.

"I took some of the bodies to the hospital. The condition was very bad. It was horrible," said Mohammed Rizwan, an ambulance driver.

Westerners in Pakistan have been warned to use caution because of threats from militant Islamic groups angry about President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led coalition's war in neighboring Afghanistan.

The radical groups were strong supporters of the Taliban regime, which collapsed under the coalition's assault.

Musharraf banned five extremist Muslim groups in January. Two months later, grenade-throwing terrorists killed five worshippers in an Islamabad church attended by foreigners. Two of the dead were Americans.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in southern Karachi in January and killed by radical Islamists protesting the detention of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Four men accused of the killing are on trial in the Sindh city of Hyderabad, 60 miles north of Karachi.

Well this makes it appear they were on a military cooperation mission, whether they were French or German:

Bomb rips through bus killing 10 foreigners in Pakistan

AFP,Karachi, May 8

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Nine Europeans, believed to be French, and two Pakistanis were killed in an apparant suicide car bombing blast outside the Sheraton Hotel here Wednesday, police said. Police said 18 others were injured when the car bomb tore through a bus parked outside the hotel, scattering body parts around the area and damaging nearby buildings including the Pearl Continental Hotel.

They initially said the dead foreigners were German naval cadets on a goodwill trip to Pakistan but Sindh provincial police chief later told AFP the victims were French.

"It was a car bomb explosion. There are 11 dead and 18 injured. Two of the dead are Pakistanis and I'm told the others were French working with the Pakistani navy. This is the initial information," he said.

Karachi police chief Asad Jahangir also said the dead were believed to be French.

"A car drove into the bus and blew up. We believe there was a suicide bomber in the car," he said.

Police said they thought the bus was carrying French businessmen working for a naval construction company when the car exploded.

French sources said a company called Direction de la Construction Naval had some 80 staff based in Karachi.

Embassy officials said they could not confirm the deaths.

"The area has been cordoned off by the police. The blast site is littered with human blood and parts of bodies," said senior police officer Zubair Mahmood.

"Glass is scattered everywhere. Many cars which had been parked in the hotel were also damaged."

The New Zealand cricket team, which was due to play a Test match in Karachi from Wednesday, was also believed to be staying in the area.

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