ISLAMABAD (AP) – A powerful car bomb detonated near a residential area in Islamabad yesterday, killing two suspected militants and an officer, police said, raising fears that militants have a presence in one of the country’s safest cities.
At least three police officers and seven passersby were wounded in the bombing. The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the explosion.
Friday’s bombing in Pakistan’s capital city happened 15 kilometres from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of the military and government spy agencies.
Police said in a statement that the blast happened when police officers spotted the car and ordered the driver to halt for routine checking. Instead of stopping, its driver detonated explosives hidden inside. A female passenger in the car also was killed, Suhail Zafar Chattha, the Deputy Police Chief in Islamabad told reporters at the scene.
TV footage showed a burning car as police officers cordoned off the area.
Residents said they saw policemen on motorcycles chasing a car and ordering a man inside the vehicle to come out.
Chattha confirmed that account, saying the suspect blew up the explosive-laden vehicle after being surrounded by police.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the bombing and thanked the police. “Police officers stopped the terrorists by sacrificing their blood and the nation salutes its brave men,” Sharif said in a statement.
Mohammad Khalid Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban or TTP, said in a statement one of the group’s militants carried out the suicide attack to avenge the killing of a senior leader.
Abdul Wali, widely known as Omar Khalid Khurasani, was killed in a roadside bombing in August in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. His death was a heavy blow to the militant group, who blamed Pakistani intelligence agents for the killing without offering any evidence or elaborating.
Pakistani Taleban have stepped up attacks on security forces since November, when they unilaterally ended a months-long cease-fire with the country’s government. The latest violence comes days after several Pakistani Taleban detainees overpowered their guards at a counterterrorism center in northwestern Pakistan, snatching police weapons and taking three officers hostage.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s special forces raided the detention centre, triggering an intense shootout in which the military later said 25 detainees linked to the Pakistani Taleban were killed in Bannu, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and part of a former tribal region.
Three troops and at least three hostages were killed in that incident.
