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Pakistan car bomb blast kills 22
A suspected car bomb ripped through a market near the home of a local politician in central Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 70 others, officials said.
The blast, in the Punjab province city of Dera Ghazi Khan, was the latest in a series of attacks that have killed more than 500 people since October, when the Pakistani military launched an offensive against militants based near the Afghanistan border.
Local police chief Athar Mubarak said Tuesday the blast originated from “a powerful car bomb.” The blast left a massive crater and was heard from a kilometre away, local commissioner Hasan Iqbal said.
The blast happened near the home of Zulfikhar Khosa, senior adviser to the chief minister of Punjab province, leaving the structure badly damaged.
Khosa’s son, Dost Mohammad Khosa, speaking from the eastern city of Lahore, said two of his cousins were wounded in the attack, which he said was aimed at his family. His father was in Islamabad at the time of the blast.
The market bore the brunt of the attack, with TV footage of the scene showing rescue workers scrambling around the smoke-filled area combing through debris and metal for survivors.
Dera Ghazi Khan has seen sectarian violence pitting Sunni and Shia Muslims against each other, but the attack bears the hallmarks of a series of attacks in Punjab province by militants, a demonstration that their reach extends beyond the country’s tribal regions.
The latest wave of attacks came in response to the Pakistan military’s just-completed two-month ground offensive in the country’s South Waziristan tribal region. The offensive, which wrapped up last week, has so far left 589 militants and 79 soldiers dead, according to the military.
None of the top Pakistani Taliban leaders are believed to have been captured or killed in the offensive, and many are believed to have fled to neighbouring regions.
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