A suicide car bomber rammed an anti-terrorist squad building at Islamabad’s police headquarters on Thursday, partly demolishing the structure and wounding at least seven people, officials said.
The blast was so powerful that it ripped off the facade of the three-storey building in the Pakistani capital, exposing a collapsed staircase inside and leaving a pile of rubble and bricks, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.
The attack happened despite a massive security deployment in Islamabad for a rare parliamentary intelligence briefing on Pakistan’s bloody campaign against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.
”A team of police commandos left the building minutes before, and that led to confusion over the casualty toll, but now all of them are accounted for and we have seven injured,” police Inspector Ehsan Khan said.
Islamabad police chief Asghar Gardezi also confirmed that initial reports of eight dead were incorrect, and added: ”We believe it was a suicide car bomber.”
Emergency workers in orange jackets clambered over the debris to check for any people trapped inside, while dozens of police guarded the area. The blast left a large crater outside the building.
”The blast was so powerful that it broke the windows and doors of our house,” said a resident who lives in the area, adding that people rushed to the police complex after the attack.
The bombing comes less than three weeks after a suicide truck bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, one of the worst terror attacks in Pakistan’s history, in which 60 people were killed.
The blast will raise further questions about security in the capital, with President Asif Ali Zardari and lawmakers all in Parliament about 3km from the explosion for the security briefing.
Violence linked to Pakistan’s role in the United States-led ”war on terror” has claimed the lives of more than 1 300 people in suicide and bomb attacks since July 2007. Many of the attacks have targeted police and the security forces.
Zardari is under pressure at home to end the violence, and faces intense US pressure to wipe out militant ”safe havens” in the tribal belt.
Pakistani troops are currently battling insurgents in the lawless tribal zone of Bajaur in a major operation launched in August, as well as in the north-western region of Swat, once a tourist hot spot.
Pakistani fighter jets and helicopter gunships on Thursday destroyed a Taliban militant facility in Swat, causing ”heavy casualties”, officials said.
Senior US General David Petraeus warned last month that Pakistan faces an ”existential threat” from extremists.
Tensions on the border have risen amid a spike in US missile attacks on militant hideouts in Pakistan and a US special forces raid in September that left 15 Pakistanis dead. — Sapa-AFP