Bomb targeting top Karachi police investigator kills 8
By Karin Brulliard,
By Karin Brulliard,
Monday, September 19, 4:32 PM
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Militants bombed the residence of a senior security official for the second time in two weeks on Monday, this time in an attack that left at least eight people dead in the sprawling southern seaport of Karachi.
The apparent target of Monday’s suicide truck bombing, a top investigator in a unit charged with cracking down on militants in Karachi, was unharmed, and he spoke defiantly to reporters at the scene.
“If they are man enough, they should come and attack me out on the streets,” Chaudhry Aslam said, according to the network Express-News 24/7. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The Karachi attack came 12 days after two suicide bombers struck the house of a senior army official in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing at least 23 people. That attack was also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, a homegrown militant outfit based in the nation’s mountainous tribal region, which said it wanted to avenge the recent arrest of an al-Qaeda leader in Quetta.
The Pakistani Taliban functions as a sort of umbrella organization of insurgents who seek to overthrow the Pakistani state. It regularly attacks military and police installations and checkpoints, as well as civilian gathering spots. The two attacks on senior security officials’ houses are a new tactic, which one senior Karachi police official described to reporters as “unexpected.”
Karachi is a teeming city of 18 million that is engulfed in an increasingly deadly spiral of gang warfare. Political parties, which stoke ethnic tensions in the city, are widely believed to be affiliated with heavily armed mobs that are vying for turf and votes. Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants also use the city to raise money and to hide, security officials say.
"We will continue targeting all such officers who are involved in the killing of our comrades," a Taliban spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, told the Associated Press.
Police said the suicide bomber detonated a white van laden with explosives outside Aslam’s residence in Karachi’s Defense neighborhood, an upscale district that is normally fairly immune from Karachi’s violence.
The van exploded just before children were to arrive at a nearby school, whose windows were shattered. In addition to six police officers, a teacher and her son were also killed, officials said.
“This is not a matter of a security lapse,” the provincial home minister, Manzoor Wasan, told reporters at the scene. “This is a war that has gripped the entire country.”
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Militants bombed the residence of a senior security official for the second time in two weeks on Monday, this time in an attack that left at least eight people dead in the sprawling southern seaport of Karachi.
The apparent target of Monday’s suicide truck bombing, a top investigator in a unit charged with cracking down on militants in Karachi, was unharmed, and he spoke defiantly to reporters at the scene.
“If they are man enough, they should come and attack me out on the streets,” Chaudhry Aslam said, according to the network Express-News 24/7. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The Karachi attack came 12 days after two suicide bombers struck the house of a senior army official in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing at least 23 people. That attack was also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, a homegrown militant outfit based in the nation’s mountainous tribal region, which said it wanted to avenge the recent arrest of an al-Qaeda leader in Quetta.
The Pakistani Taliban functions as a sort of umbrella organization of insurgents who seek to overthrow the Pakistani state. It regularly attacks military and police installations and checkpoints, as well as civilian gathering spots. The two attacks on senior security officials’ houses are a new tactic, which one senior Karachi police official described to reporters as “unexpected.”
Karachi is a teeming city of 18 million that is engulfed in an increasingly deadly spiral of gang warfare. Political parties, which stoke ethnic tensions in the city, are widely believed to be affiliated with heavily armed mobs that are vying for turf and votes. Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants also use the city to raise money and to hide, security officials say.
"We will continue targeting all such officers who are involved in the killing of our comrades," a Taliban spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, told the Associated Press.
Police said the suicide bomber detonated a white van laden with explosives outside Aslam’s residence in Karachi’s Defense neighborhood, an upscale district that is normally fairly immune from Karachi’s violence.
The van exploded just before children were to arrive at a nearby school, whose windows were shattered. In addition to six police officers, a teacher and her son were also killed, officials said.
“This is not a matter of a security lapse,” the provincial home minister, Manzoor Wasan, told reporters at the scene. “This is a war that has gripped the entire country.”
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.washingtonpost.com/world/bomb-targeting-top-karachi-police-investigator-kills-8/2011/09/19/gIQALZeoeK_story.html
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