SEVEN people have been killed and several more wounded in a car bomb attack targeting a senior police official in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi.
Senior Superintendent Aslam Khan, who was unhurt but whose home was destroyed, said he had been threatened by the Pakistani Taliban and was the target of the attack.
“It was a car bomb attack on my house,” he said.
“I was receiving threats from Tehreek-e-Taliban. Taliban are involved in this attack.”
Khan heads the counter-terrorism unit of the Police Crime Investigation Department in Karachi, investigating Islamist militant cells in the city.
“Seven people have been killed and several others were wounded. It was a car bomb attack,” Shoukat Hussain, another senior police officer told AFP.
“We have received three dead bodies,” Simi Jamal, a senior doctor at Karachi’s main Jinnah hospital, said.
Karachi, Pakistan’s economic hub, is currently undergoing its worst ethnic and politically linked unrest in 16 years, with more than 100 people killed in one week alone last month.
The gang wars have been linked to ethnic tensions between the Mohajirs, the Urdu-speaking majority represented by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), and Pashtun migrants affiliated to the rival Awami National Party (ANP).
The nationally ruling Pakistan People’s Party, which was elected in 2008 after nine years of military rule, insists that civilian authorities are capable of controlling the bloodshed, despite calls for military intervention.
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