Police investigate Pakistan suicide bombing

Authorities in Pakistan were today investigating a suicide bombing that killed 16 people before a rally, the latest in a series of violent incidents since the army stormed a mosque held by Islamic extremists.

Police cordoned off the area in the heart of the capital, Islamabad, where the bombing took place yesterday and, along with bomb experts, combed the scene for evidence.

The bloodshed has heightened tensions, with religious radicals calling for more revenge attacks on the government and troops moving into militant strongholds on the border with Afghanistan – a move welcomed by Washington as helping in the fight against terrorists.

The bombing underlined the antagonism as various parties sought to place blame.

President General Pervez Musharraf condemned the blast as a “terrorist act” and officials said they were trying to determine responsibility.

A security official said the bomber’s severed head had been found.

Supporters of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry accused the government of being behind the mayhem, while an opposition party thought to be considering joining a coalition government with Musharraf after year-end elections said the attack was aimed at its loyalists.

In a sign of mourning and protest, the Pakistan Bar Council, the country’s largest lawyers’ association, announced last night that its members would not engage in any court proceedings today except for the chief justice’s case.

Chaudhry, whose fight against Musharraf’s effort to oust him has fuelled opposition to the president extending his rule, was a few miles away when the attacker struck about 8.30pm outside the Islamabad district court building.

Naeem Iqbal, a senior police official at the scene, said the explosion had killed 16 people. Opposition party activists, police officers and bystanders were believed to be among the victims.

Iqbal said 86 injured persons were taken to hospitals and that all but 30 had since been released.

The attacker blew himself up on a tree-lined street leading to the large tent just as hundreds of people converged on the area, which was also busy with evening shoppers.

Pools of blood, pieces of flesh and scattered shoes lay on the asphalt next to a blood-spattered car.

Three security officials called it a suicide attack and said the severed head of the bomber had been recovered.

The bomb went off next to stalls set up by Pakistan’s two main opposition parties, led by exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

One of Chaudhry’s attorneys, Munir Malik, accused Pakistani intelligence agencies. “This was an attack on the chief justice,” he said.

However, Raja Pervez Ashraf, a leader of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said the attacker targeted her activists. “Most among the dead and injured are our supporters,” Ashraf said.

Musharraf “condemned in the strongest terms the latest terrorist act which took place in Islamabad”, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan said.

The president ordered an immediate inquiry and appealed to the public “to remain calm, vigilant and assist the authorities in unearthing the culprits and bringing them to justice”, the report said.

Some analysts and diplomats expect Bhutto to join a power-sharing government with Musharraf after elections due late this year.

She is the only opposition leader to voice strong support for the bloody government crackdown on the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad – a siege that left more than 100 dead in eight days of fighting.

Taliban and al-Qaida leaders and other militants have called for attacks to avenge the mosque’s defenders, and a suicide blast killed three soldiers in the volatile North Waziristan region yesterday.

Bombings and suicide attacks have killed more than 100 people in the northwest since the mosque battle.

Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, suspended Chaudhry in March, accusing him of nepotism and other abuses of his post, charges the judge denies.

Musharraf insists he has no political motive, but opponents accuse him of trying to remove an independent-minded judge who might uphold legal challenges to the president’s plan for extending his rule.

The Supreme Court, which has been hearing an appeal by Chaudhry, is expected to announce a verdict soon, perhaps by Friday.