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Suicide car bomb hits Lahore, 23 dead
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Suicide car bomb hits Lahore, 23 dead
AFP - 2 hours 43 minutes ago
LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - - A suicide car bomb flattened a police building in Pakistan's city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing 23 people in an attack the government branded revenge for an offensive against the Taliban.
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The blast -- the third deadly attack to rock the country's liberal cultural capital in as many months -- points to a widening net of Islamist violence which has killed more than 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years.
Up to five attackers opened fire and threw grenades before a van packed with explosives blew up outside an emergency response building beside the provincial headquarters of Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, police said.
Two of the attackers were inside the vehicle but failed to storm the checkpoint, instead hitting the barrier, exploding into a ball of fire on the road and flattening the building, police and administration officials said.
Authorities said more than 300 people were wounded in the attack.
"I heard firing and then a huge blast," said one policeman who staggered out of the rubble, saying that there were 30-35 policemen inside.
"The wall collapsed on me. I was trapped in the wreckage and fell unconscious," said an elderly man, speaking to reporters from his hospital bed.
Rescue workers ferried out the injured on their backs, stumbling over the debris, while people tried to dig out bloodied bodies buried deep in rubble.
The blast, which some witnesses likened to an earthquake, damaged nearby buildings in the security nerve centre of Lahore, two months after a deadly assault on a police academy near the eastern city claimed by the Taliban .
"The initial investigation shows that the attackers first fired at the police and security pickets at the corner of the building and then an explosives-laden Toyota van blew up," said Lahore police chief Pervaiz Rathore.
"The terrorists also threw hand grenades but they could not penetrate the building. The death toll is 22-23 and the number of wounded exceeds 300. This includes people with minor injuries," said Rathore.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) building was partly damaged and an intelligence officer was killed in the blast, one security official told AFP.
Police suspected that three assailants managed to slip away and security officials said four suspects were rounded up for questioning.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but immediate suspicion fell on Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked groups as the government branded the attack revenge for its latest offensive against the Taliban in the northwest.
"Enemies of Pakistan who want to destabilise the country are coming here after their defeat in Swat," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters.
"There is a war and this is a war for our survival," he added.
President Asif Ali Zardari said the militants "were trying to create panic among the people through such acts of barbarism, but they will not be allowed to succeed," in remarks reported by his spokesman Farhatullah Babar.
"The president believes that incidents like the Lahore bomb blast were the dying kicks of the militants who were on the run," the spokesman said.
Pakistan's military has been locked in a month-long offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest, which the authorities say has killed about 1,200 extremists and sent 2.4 million people fleeing their homes.
In the capital Islamabad, police said they had arrested three men suspected of planning attacks on government installations. They came from Buner, one of the districts where the military has been pounding Taliban targets.
Lahore has been increasingly rocked by violent attacks.
On March 30, attackers armed with guns, grenades and suicide vests stormed a police training centre on the outskirts of the city, unleashing eight hours of gun battles and killing seven police cadets and a civilian.
That attack was claimed by Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud -- a man with a five-million-dollar bounty on his head offered by the United States -- who threatened to carry out further attacks across the country.
On March 3, gunmen ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket team bus in Lahore on its way to a test match with Pakistan that left eight Pakistanis dead and ended hopes of the country hosting international sport in the immediate future.
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