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Aftermath of the attack outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad. Click to view more images from Reuters. |
A bombing near the Danish embassy in a secured region of Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad killed eight people and wounded moor than 30, some seriously. No group has taken credit for the attack, but Pakistani intelligence suspects an al Qaeda affiliate group conducted the strike.
The bombing occurred in the F-6 II region in what is known as Islamabad’s Red Zone, a high security area that houses foreign embassies and the office of the United Nations Development Program. The bomber appears to have driven a car with diplomatic license plates through security, and parked it in a parking lot next to the Danish embassy. The car bomb was then either detonated remotely or by timer.
The car bomb was believed to have contained about 65 pounds of explosives. The blast left a crater about four feet deep and nine feet wide, and damaged the wall of the Danish embassy as well as the offices of the United Nations Development Program.
All of those reported killed appear to be Pakistanis, however one report indicated a foreign national may have also been killed in the blast.
While no terror group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Pakistani intelligence believes Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, an al Qaeda and Taliban linked group, was behind the attack. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is a splinter group of the Sipah-e-Sahaba (the Army of Mohamed’s companions), a radical Deobandi group that attacks the Shia minority in Pakistan. The US designated Lashkar-i-Jhangvi a Foreign Terrorist Organization in January 2003, while Pakistan banned the outfit in August 2001, just prior to the September 11 attacks on the US.
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has been behind several high-profile attacks against foreigners in Pakistan. The groups was behind the kidnapping and brutal murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2003, and attack on a Pakistani Navy bus that killed 11 French technicians and three Pakistanis and a car bomb attack on the American consulate that killed 12 Pakistanis in 2002.
Today’s attack is the first major strike inside Islamabad since March 15, when one civilian was killed and 15 wounded in a bombing at an Italian restaurant known to be frequented by foreigners. Twelve foreigners were wounded in the bombing.
Four days prior, a dual suicide attack in Lahore targeted a building housing Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency and another building that served as the headquarters of an advertising agency. The bombing in Lahore killed 28 Pakistanis and wounded more than 160. US intelligence officers were working at the Federal Investigation Agency building at the time of the attack.
On Feb. 25, a suicide bomber killed the Pakistani Army’s surgeon general in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi. Seven others were killed in the attack and 20 were wounded after a Taliban suicide bomber rammed into Lieutenant General Mushtaq Ahmed Baig’s staff car. Mushtaq is the senior-most general killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001.
Compiled from reports from Geo TV, The News, The Associated Press of Pakistan, and Adnkronos International.
8 Comments
Religion of Peace!
A suicide bomber hit the Danish embassy in Pakistan today, possibly in answer to the call from al Qaeda’s number-two psycho, Ayman al-Zawahiri: Denmark has done her utmost to demonstrate her hostility towards the Muslims by repeatedly dishonoring our P…
Isn’t this linked, yet again, to the Mohammed cartoon published in the Netherlands? Didn’t OBL call for more retaliation against the Danish infidels?
The Pakistanis must support the Taliban and Al Qaeda more than the government. If a single car bomb went off here in the USA I would be all over it demanding a retaliatory strike against those responsible.
Yes to both the above posts: UBL did call for more retaliation for Danes cartoon (even though they apologized), and AQ probably has either suborned or intimidated enough Paks to have as much or more support than the government.
This is what the Danes get for being apolgetic.
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is an anti-Shia group that joined OBL’s International Islamic Front in the 1998/1999 timeframe. OBL has been their emir since then.
Saddam backed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi because of its anti-Shia and anti-Iran agenda.
Zarkawi also worked with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in Pakistan in the 1990s–killing Pakistani Shia for kicks.
I hope we understand that we can’t stop terrorism against anyone fully without stopping terrorism against everyone.
Anti-Shia terrorism must be eliminated, not just for the sake of the Shia, but for the sake of us all (all non-muslims and sunni muslims.)
I agree with anand but why these groups are becoming stronger and stronger, because they have lot of support in government circle specially agencies. They were created in the time of late Gen: Ziaul Haq with the mission to penetrate inside all government departments and even army. Now they have grown up and it is very difficult to eradicate them. The west must pay for the mistakes they did by unanimously supporting the so called Afghan jehad against former USSR and installing bigoted regime of Ziaul Haq in Pakistan.All these terrorists groups are the production of that time and grown up with American and other western countries funds. AQ is the mother and this strange mother has delivered lot of offsprings giving American feeders in their hand. Now they are grown up having Russian weapons in hands targeting same Americans and western allied forces.
Sure seems to me if the group was banned in Pakistan before 9/11 it must have some support there. Pretty obvious the Pakistani’s are having trouble controlling their own country. With confirmed sightings of Al Zawahiri there you know Osama can’t be too far away. Until all the citizens of the country get everyone on board to fight against the terrorists this will continue. Until then I guess we will have to be content with picking off the ones we can get with predators when they have the spine to show their faces.
a.shah, “The west must pay for the mistakes they did by unanimously supporting the so called Afghan jehad against former USSR.” You mean the world must pay. The vast majority of the victims of Takfiri terror are not Westeners.
The whole world back the Jihad against the USSR (including China, Japan, and the entire muslim world), not just the west.
No foreigner put Zia ul Haq in power. Zia put himself in power. Zia manipulated many countries around the world for his own purposes. He famously pointed to a map of the southern former USSR and said “these are ours.”