Police officers killed in Pakistan blast
Senior officer escapes unhurt as suicide attack targets his home in Karachi, leaving at least eight dead.
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| Senior police officer Aslam estimated that at least 200kg of explosives were used in the attack [Reuters] |
At least eight people, six of them police officers, have been killed in the Pakistani commercial capital of Karachi after an explosives-laden car drove into the home of a senior police officer.
Senior superintendent of police Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam survived Monday’s suicide bomb attack unharmed but he told reporters he had received threats from anti-government fighters, including the al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban.
“I was sleeping when they carried out this cowardly act and rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into my house,” said Aslam, who works in the crime investigation department, which works to arrest Taliban fighters.
“I will not be cowed. I will teach a lesson to generations of militants.”
Aslam estimated that at least 200kg of explosives were used in the attack.
Local television footage showed extensive damage from the blast. The front of one two-story concrete building was totally blown away.
Rubble littered the streets amid the burned carcasses of cars hit by the explosion.
Police chief Saud Mirza told the Reuters news agency a suicide bomber carried out the attack and that some members of Aslam’s family were trapped under rubble.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which left a crater 10 feet deep, according to police.
Karachi is Pakistan’s most unstable city and it is plagued by ethnic and political violence which has reached its worst level in 15 years.
The attack came a day after heavily armed Taliban fighters stormed a police post in Bara in the Khyber tribal border area, triggering clashes that left at least 15 people dead.
Officials said the attack, near the Afghan border, lasted one hour.
More than 50 Taliban fighters armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the police post, where anti-Taliban armed groups were also present to help the police, local official Sayed Ahmad Jan told the AFP news agency.