Taliban claim responsibility for Lahore attack

LAHORE – The Taliban claimed responsibility yesterday for a deadly bomb and gun attack on police and intelligence agency offices in eastern Pakistan, while two new blasts ripped through a market in the northern city of Peshawar.

At least four people were killed and dozens wounded in the explosions in Peshawar’s Qissa Khawani market, senior police officer Zarman Shah Khan told The Associated Press. The bombs were planted on two motorcycles and detonated by timers, bomb disposal squad chief Shafqat Malik told reporters. Television networks showed video of people carrying a bloody body from a shop, mangled and smoking cars and walls and windows apparently blasted away. Commando units which rushed to the scene fought a gunbattle with several militants, fatally shooting two of them, Khan said.
‘It was a sudden blast and then there was fire all around, a cloud of smoke filled the sky,’ said Khair Uddin, a shopkeeper whose hands and chest were bloodied by shrapnel from the blast. A doctor at a nearby hospital, Sahib Gul, said 75 people wounded in the blast had been brought in, most of them with critical injuries.
Peshawar is the main city in Pakistan’s northwest and is close to the lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border where Taliban militants have long held sway.
Violence has become increasingly common in the city. On May 16, two separate bombings on the same day destroyed an Internet cafe and wrecked a bus carrying handicapped children, killing at least 11 people.
The explosions yesterday came a day after a suicide attack on police and intelligence agency offices in the eastern city of Lahore killed about 30 people and wounded more than 300 others.
– Nampa-AP