Sunday, August 1, 2010

A suicide bomber targeted workers queuing for their salaries outside a Pakistan bank and hotel yesterday, killing 34 people, as the United Nations pulled expatriate staff from the northwest.

The second large-scale bomb to kill civilians in less than a week, the attack near the army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi showed the enormity of the threat that Al Qaeda-linked militants pose in Pakistan.

The explosion outside the bank and the four-star Shal-imar Hotel showered the area with human flesh, smearing blood on the ground and shattering windows.

“Our building shook as if in an earthquake and when we came out there was smoke everywhere and body parts were thrown into our office,” Raja Sher Ali, a marketing manager said.

A surge in bloodshed left more than 300 people dead last month as Pakistan presses a major offensive against the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the tribal belt, where US officials say Al Qaeda are plotting attacks on the West.

A senior police official said the latest attack was the work of a suicide bomber, although rescue workers said the cause of the blast was still unclear.

“The suicide bomber came on a motorcycle and blew up close to people gathered to get salaries. We found parts of a suicide vest and some body parts of the suicide attacker,” senior police official Aslam Tarin said.

Deeba Shehnaz, a rescue workers spokeswoman, said there were 34 dead bodies lying in three different hospitals, with 32 people wounded.

The attack struck near the upmarket Pearl Continental Hotel and Pakistan’s army headquarters, where ten gunmen kept up a nearly 24-hour siege last month that left 23 people dead and deeply embarrassed the military.

Pakistan vowed to persevere in its US-endorsed fight against Islamist networks, which have killed more than 2,420 people in a wave of suicide attacks and bombings within the nuclear-armed Muslim nation since July 2007.

“It will not shake our determination to eradicate and to eliminate this menace,” For-eign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said.

The plummeting security situation saw the United Nations announce it was pulling out international staff from northwest Pakistan, days after at least 118 people were slaughtered in a car bomb.

Also yesterday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a police checkpoint near bus terminals at the entrance to Pakistan’s city of Lahore  wounding seven people.