PAKISTAN: Two suspected suicide car bombs explode in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing at least 24 people, including two children

Record ID: 356087

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Two suspected suicide car bombs explode in the Pakistani city of Lahore, killing at least 24 people, including two children
  • Date: 11th March 2008
  • Summary: W3 LAHORE, PAKISTAN (MARCH 11, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF HOSPITAL AMBULANCE ARRIVING PEOPLE CROWDING AT HOSPITAL LOBBY VARIOUS OF INJURED BEING TAKEN OUT OF AMBULANCE VARIOUS OF INJURED ON STRETCHER IN HOSPITAL VARIOUS OF INJURED BEING TREATED (SOUNDBITE) (Urdu) PARVEZ, INJURED MAN SAYING: "I was standing by the door when blast occurred. Then there was dust everywhere
  • Embargoed: 26th March 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA9KHT03ZBI4N789TFOSU8T3VYT
  • Story Text: At least 24 people are reported dead after two suspected suicide car bombings in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday (March 11).
    One exploded outside the city-centre Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), badly damaging the multi-storey office and nearby buildings, shortly after working hours began. The agency focuses on illegal immigration and people smuggling.
    Rescuers were quickly on the scene, pulling bodies from the rubble and rushing the wounded to hospital.
    Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said 21 people died in the FIA building bombing, 12 of them agency staff.
    Cheema told a news conference security, already very tight around the country, was being further beefed up and additional measures taken for public places, government installations and likely targets.
    Provincial governments were also being asked to accelerate their intelligence-gathering operations in order to catch those responsible for such attacks before they had a chance to strike.
    The blasts came as opposition parties that won a February 18 election were forming a coalition government, raising hopes for political stability after months of turmoil over opposition to President Pervez Musharraf.
    Cheema said a possible motive behind the blasts could be to put pressure on the incoming government.
    At about the same time as the bombing at the FIA building, a second suicide bomber in a car struck in a mainly residential neighbourhood of Lahore killing three people including two children, he said.
    Police said the second car bomb blew up after it was stopped at the gate of an advertising agency office, near the Lahore home of Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
    While much of the violence taking place in Pakistan has been in remote northwestern regions, suicide attacks have taken place in all of Pakistan's major cities over the past year.
    More than 500 people have been killed in Pakistan this year in militant-related violence.
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