Five police officers killed and at least 30 wounded in latest violence to hit Pakistan since killing of Osama bin Laden
A suicide car bomber has struck a police building in Pakistan's main north-west city, killing five police officers and wounding at least 30 others in the latest violence to hit the country since the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Although no group immediately claimed responsibility for the early morning strike on Wednesday in Peshawar, the attack added to growing fears of a long, bloody summer as Pakistani Taliban and other al-Qaida-affiliated groups carry out threats to avenge the al-Qaida chief's death.
Already this month, the Pakistani Taliban have claimed they carried out three revenge attacks, including a deadly 18-hour siege of a naval base.
The bomber's target appeared to be a building belonging to the police's criminal investigation department, but the station was located in an army cantonment and military facilities are also nearby, said Liaquat Ali Khan, a senior police official in Peshawar.
Investigators with the police counter-terrorism unit were stationed at the centre, said Fayaz Khan Toru, the leading police official in north-west Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Police officer Mohammad Zahid was in the basement of the building when the bomb went off.
"I felt like the sky fell on me," Zahid said from the hospital where he was being treated for multiple injuries. "The explosion jammed the door of my room in the basement, but there was a small hole in the wall so I crawled through that. When I got outside, there was lots of dust and smoke."
Military forces quickly sealed off much of the area as machines were brought in to sift through the facility's wreckage.
"Our determination is much higher than before, and we will fight till the defeat of these terrorists," said Bashir Bilour, a senior official with the provincial government.
Since the death of Osama bin Laden, US-Pakistan relations have sunk to new lows.
The Pakistani Taliban are exploiting the tense relations by promising to attack both Pakistani and western targets to avenge Bin Laden's death. The militant group has long despised the Pakistani government and army for their alliance with the US, a sentiment shared by many ordinary Pakistanis.
Since the Bin Laden raid, the group has taken responsibility for a twin suicide bombing at a paramilitary police training facility that killed around 90 people and a car bomb that slightly wounded two Americans in north-west Pakistan.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/suicide-bomber-attacks-pakistani-police
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