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US diplomat, 3 others killed in Karachi attack

* Sherpao says govt has proof of foreign involvement
* 2 rockets land near Gadap
* Bush says attack won’t stop him from visiting Pakistan

By Abbas Naqvi

KARACHI: A suicide car bomber rammed into a diplomatic vehicle outside the United States Consulate in Karachi on Thursday, killing an American diplomat and three others, including the attacker. Hours later, two rockets exploded in a stream near the Gadap area but caused no damage or casualties.

Reportedly, a white car packed with about 12 to 15 kilogrammes of explosives rammed into the American diplomat’s five-door vehicle between 9.02am and 9.05am, killing the diplomat and three others.

Police sources said the plan was made to deliberately use a small car so that it would be able to hit the chassis of the diplomat’s larger vehicle in such a way that it exploded upwards. The car was parked outside the nearby Naval hospital. Sources said that a Rangers official, Zafar, had asked the attacker to move his car but the attacker made some excuse. In the meantime the diplomat’s vehicle approached and the attacker rammed his car into it.

The blast was so severe that it broke the windowpanes of shops and houses as far as the Metropole Hotel. Zafar, US consulate driver Iftikhar, the US Foreign Office’s David Foy and the attacker were killed and 54 people were injured, mostly police, Rangers and Marriott Hotel staff.

The explosion left a 15-foot wide and almost 3.25-foot deep crater in the road. Twenty cars were also destroyed. The nine-storey hotel was 60 percent full with foreigners. An eight-year-old Moroccan girl, a diplomat’s daughter, was also injured while in her hotel room with her parents.

Sources at the JPMC said the DNA test of the suicide bomber was being carried out. They said that five of the injured were in critical condition.

Capital City Police Officer Niaz Siddiqi told reporters that it appeared that the attacker’s vehicle did not pass by a police check-post, but came from within the hotel. He said the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other US agencies were assisting the Karachi police in investigations.

The attack came less than two days before Bush is scheduled to make a trip to Pakistan. “I have been briefed on the bombings and we have lost at least one US citizen in the bombings – a foreign service officer,” Bush said following talks with Indian PM Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. “Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan,” he vowed.

President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz condemned the blast and vowed that its perpetrators would not be spared.

Shahzad Raza adds from Islamabad: Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao confirmed that the terrorist attack was a suicide act. He said that no group had accepted responsibility so far.

“It was a well-planned attack. The Rangers tried to stop the car of the suicide attacker, but it broke the security barrier and hit the armoured vehicle of the US diplomat killing him and his driver,” the interior minister told Daily Times.

Sherpao told a private television on Thursday that the government had proof of foreign involvement in the Karachi blast, Online reported.

He said that the issue of terrorists from neighbouring countries carrying out attacks in Pakistan will be brought up during President Bush’s visit. “Every terrorist in Balochistan and Karachi has a covert foreign hand involved,” he said.

A federal cabinet meeting presided over by the PM also condemned the attack. Hours after the suicide attack, two rockets fell and exploded in a stream near Gadap but caused no damage or casualties, AFP quoted local police official Hasan Dal as saying.

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