Suicide bombing at Pakistani naval college
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - March 4, 2008 The bombers rode up to the gate of the college's parking lot on
a motorcycle. The passenger dismounted and destroyed the gate with
a bomb, allowing his accomplice to ride inside and unleash a much
more powerful blast, said Malik Iqbal, police chief in the eastern
city of Lahore.
Muhammad Safdar, a 23-year-old chauffeur, said he had dropped
off an officer at the college and was sitting in the cafeteria when
he heard the first blast and rushed outside.
"There was smoke and vehicles on fire ...Several people were
lying on the ground injured and crying for help, but I, too, was
injured as something hit me in the neck," he told reporters.
Pakistan Navy War College, which trains senior naval officials
from Pakistan and other countries, is the latest target in a
bombing campaign that has killed hundreds in recent months and
relented only briefly during the Feb. 18 parliamentary elections.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told
reporters the United States condemned the attack and offered its
sympathies to the victims and their families.
Terrorists in Pakistan "are willing to use any and all"
techniques to carry out their objectives, he said. Continuing
attacks show the importance of the U.S. working with the government
to fight extremism, he said. "We want to be able to work well with
the new Pakistani government once it's formed," Casey said.
Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the party expected to lead the
new government, called the bombing as "inhuman, barbaric and most
despicable."
Pakistanis must unite against "conspirators and extremists,"
said Zardari, the widower of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, who
was assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack in December.
President Pervez Musharraf said the government "would not be
cowed down by such acts," vowing to "continue the fight against
extremism and terrorism," the state-run Associated Press of
Pakistan news agency reported.
The four dead and 14 wounded were all employees of the college,
Iqbal told reporters. None were senior military officials, he said.
The police chief said it was too early to speculate about who
was responsible for the attack.
On Friday, suicide blasts killed 40 people at a funeral for a
slain police official in the restive Swat Valley. About 40 tribal
elders died in another suicide attack Sunday as they discussed
setting up a militia force to combat militants near the Afghan
border.
The violence increases the pressure on moderate, pro-Western
parties who triumphed in the vote to form a government and review
government strategy against the militants.
However, the parties of Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, another former
prime minister, have said their priority is reducing the sweeping
powers accumulated by Musharraf since he seized power in a 1999
coup.
Mullen, the top U.S. military official, was making his second
visit to Pakistan in a month, emphasizing concern in Washington at
the growing strength of al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
Mullen and Musharraf, who has been a key ally in the U.S.-led
war on terror, discussed the "regional security situation and the
measures being taken to address it," the news agency said.
Mullen also conferred with Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who
replaced Musharraf as army chief in November as part of the
country's transition back to democracy after eight years of
military rule.
Details of the talks were not released, but Mullen was expected
to discuss U.S. military assistance including plans to send
American counterinsurgency experts to Pakistan this year to help
train a paramilitary force on the front line of the battle with
militants near the Afghan border.
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Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad
and Foster Klug in Washington contributed to this report.
