[NYTr] Suicide blast near Musharraf's HQ in Rawalpindi

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

BBC - Oct 30, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7068670.stm

Fatal blast near Musharraf's HQ

A suicide bomb attack has killed at least seven people and injured 11
near Pakistan's army headquarters, in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Officials said the blast occurred some 2km (1.24 miles) away from a
secure compound containing the army HQ and President Pervez Musharraf's
office.

General Musharraf was in his office at the time of the attack, but was
unhurt.

The attack follows a number of recent bombings in Pakistan, which have
been blamed on Islamic militants.

No group has said it carried out the latest bombing. The location of
the explosion was a police checkpoint.

A man had approached the checkpoint on foot and detonated his
explosives, a government spokesman said. 

Two policemen and two paramilitary soldiers were among those killed by
the explosion, along with the suspected bomber. The dead and injured
included passers-by.

President Musharraf was safe inside his headquarters in Army House
discussing the security situation with senior officials when the bomb
went off, according to presidential spokesman Rashid Qureshi.

People living and working nearby told the BBC they had heard a huge
explosion.

"The blast was so loud and powerful that the windows of my office shook
with the sound of it," one man said. "My office is nearly 1.7km from
the exact location."

Heightened tensions

This is the third bombing in Rawalpindi in the past two months,
including a a double suicide bombing in September that killed 25 people.

Earlier this month, 139 people were killed when bombers in Karachi
attacked the motorcade of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as she
returned to Pakistan after eight years of self-imposed exile.

These earlier bombings are thought to have been the work of Islamic
militants, who are angry with both the Musharraf government and Ms
Bhutto, whom they believe to be too closely allied to the US.

Tensions in the country were heightened in July when Gen Musharraf
ordered troops to storm the radical Red Mosque in Pakistan's capital,
Islamabad. More than 100 people were killed in the operation.

The mosque had been occupied by Islamic militants, who were using it as
a base from which to organise opposition to the government and try to
enforce their strict interpretation of Sharia law in Islamabad.

Islamist militants with links to the Taleban and al-Qaeda have tried to
kill President Musharraf several times because of his support for the
US-led "war on terror".

Since the storming of the Red Mosque the militants have launched a
series of attacks on the army, and battles have raged in tribal areas
near the Afghan border.

© BBC MMVII