- Title: PAKISTAN: BODIES OF U.S. WOMEN KILLED IN CHURCH ATTACK LEAVE FOR HOME.
- Date: 21st March 2002
- Summary: (W1) ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (MARCH 20,2002) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) 1. LV: PAKISTAN INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES 0.05 2. GV/MV: U.S. EMBASSY OFFICIALS GOING INTO MORTUARY/ U.S. EMBASSY CARS ARRIVING/ U.S. OFFICIALS (3 SHOTS) 0.27 3. GV: HOSPITAL WORKERS GOING INTO MORTUARY 0.32 4. MV: FIRST COFFIN BEING BROUGHT OUT OF MORTUARY 0.42
- Embargoed: 5th April 2002 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
- Country: Pakistan
- Reuters ID: LVA4V88W3G41L7O8XU0OFPZ99ZH9
- Story Text: The bodies of two American women killed in a weekend
church attack have left Pakistan for home aboard a U.S.
military plane on Wednesday after a moving memorial service.
U.S. Marines took the bodies of two American women
killed in a Pakistan church attack from a hospital mortuary to
a military base on Wednesday (March 20) for the flight home.
Barbara Green and her daughter Kristen were among five
people who died in a hail of shrapnel from half a dozen blasts
while worshipping at the Protestant International Church in
Islamabad on Sunday (March 17).
Two Marines and an American official loaded the
flag-draped silver caskets into two U.S. embassy vans before
driving to the base, which shares runways with the
international airport.
A memorial service for the two dead women, the wife and
daughter of a U.S. diplomat, was held at the heavily fortified
American compound on Wednesday afternoon before the bodies
were flown out.
Media had been barred from the service and the departure
of the bodies at the family's request.
Prayers were recited, a family friend read a poem and U.S.
Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin spoke of the need to "serve the
world and peace in the world", he said. A bugler sounded the
"Last Post" and the U.S. anthem was played.
The bodies left Chaklala air base aboard a U.S. C-130
military transport plane, an airport official said.
Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Christina Rocca flew to
Pakistan from India on Monday, saying she would accompany the
bodies home. But the U.S. diplomat said he could not confirm
those arrangements.
No one has claimed responsibility but the spotlight is on
hard-line Islamic groups opposed to Pakistan's support for the
U.S.-led war on terror and its crackdown on Muslim militants.
A Pakistani and an Afghan also were killed but suspicion
is growing the fifth body may be that of the grenade-lobbing
attacker as no one has come forward to claim the unidentified
and mangled corpse.
Forty-two people from various nations were wounded but
hospital officials said all were out of danger.
President Pervez Musharraf, who expressed "dismay" on
Monday (March 18) at the security lapse around the church in
Islambad's diplomatic quarter, on Tuesday relieved the
capital's most senior police officers of their posts at a
meeting of senior officials.
Chairing a meeting of the Federal Cabinet on Wednesday
(March 20) Musharraf called for major steps to combat the
incidents of terrorism that have recently escalated in the
country.
"The President said special anti-terrorist units are being
created within the national security organisations to deal
with the menace that has recently resurfaced following the
government's successful handling of the post-September 11
events and its effective and principled policy to join the
international coalition in the fight against terrorism,"
information minister, Nisar Memon, said at a news briefing
after the meeting.
He quoted Musharraf as telling his cabinet that "these
terrorists deserved no sympathy and needed to be dealt with
firmly and mercilessly albeit judiciously".
Commentators say the violence in one of Pakistan's most
protected areas has hurt Musharraf's credibility as an
effective partner in the anti-terror campaign and threatens to
scare off much-needed foreign investment.
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