Pakistan blasts kill 45
Twin suicide attacks have targeted the Pakistani military, killing 45 people in the second attack to hit security forces in the country's cultural capital Lahore this week. Police said the bombers walked up to Pakistani army vehicles in the densely populated R A Bazaar area, blowing themselves up as people sat down to eat before the main Muslim weekly prayers were to begin.
The army cordoned off the tree-lined street where there were shops and a mosque, preventing access to journalists as ambulances raced through the city of 8 million to ferry the dead and wounded to hospitals.
"The first blast was very small - followed by sounds of gunfire. Immediately after there was a big blast hitting an army vehicle," said Mohammad Bilal, who had just sat down for lunch at a nearby restaurant.
"We have the heads of both the bombers," police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq told reporters. There was an interval of 15 seconds between the two attacks. They were on foot. Their target was army vehicles. Army personnel, were injured, some of them are in a serious condition."
On Monday, a suicide car bomber destroyed security offices used to interrogate suspected militants in an upmarket Lahore neighbourhood, killing 15 people in an attack claimed by Pakistan's mainstream Taliban faction.
Lahore, Pakistan's historic cultural capital and home to many military and intelligence top brass, has been repeatedly in the militants' sights, with eight attacks killing 155 people in the city over the past year.
Posted on 03/12/2010 7:20 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
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