Deaths in Pakistan suicide blast

The dead included four members of the security forces, a military statement said.

 

They included a colonel from the army’s medical corps, according to a military official and a police officer.

 

A female major was among the injured, the military official said.

 

 

In recent months, a series of attacks have hit security forces and employees of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, including two suicide bombings against a bus of ISI employees and an army checkpoint on November 24 that killed up to 35 people.

 

There have been no claims of responsibility for the attacks, but authorities have blamed pro-Taliban fighters based near the Afghan border.

 

Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and about 20 others died on December 27 in a gun-and-bomb attack in Rawalpindi.

 

 

 

Elsewhere on Monday, a man on a motorcycle opened fire on a gathering of about 100 PPP supporters, wounding one person, police said.

 

The shooting occurred in Karachi, the southern port city in Sindh province, according to Mohammed Pervez, a police officer.

 

After the attack, PPP activists pelted police and nearby shops with stones but no one was injured in that melee, Pervez said.

 

PPP members claimed 10 people were hurt.