Title: West rocked in Pak
Author:  
Publication: Daily Pioneer
Date: May 9, 2002
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/archives1/secon2.asp?cat=\story1&d=FRONT_PAGE&fdnam=may902

Agencies/Karachi
A suicide-bomber on Wednesday rammed an explosive-laden car into a Pakistan Navy bus killing 14 people, including 11 French nationals working on a submarine project in the country, and injuring 34 others.

Nine Frenchmen died on the spot. Two other French citizens succumbed to injuries in hospital. Police and bomb squad personnel examine the remnants of the bus hit by a car bomb in Karachi on Wednesday - AP 

Officials said a Navy coaster carrying the foreigners to their workplace in Pakistan's port town of Karachi was blown to bits near the Sheraton Hotel here at 8 am when a red-coloured Toyota Corolla car laden with explosives rammed into the bus.

The car and the driver were blown to pieces, as the impact of the explosion created a large crater on the road and shattered window panes of buildings within a 100-metre radius, a news agency said. Eyewitnesses said the explosion was so powerful that it blew the car 50 metres away from the place it was parked at and human limbs were scattered over a wide area.

Pakistan cricketer Saqlain Mushtaq said he was about to leave his room at the Sheraton for breakfast when he heard a massive explosion. "Initially I thought it was an earthquake and I immediately rushed out of the room."

The police said the car was stolen from the Gulshan Iqbal area in the city a few days ago. The believe that the suicide bomber had parked the car alongside the bus and activated the bomb just as the foreigners were boarding.

Four of the French nationals who were killed have been identified as Procast, Pascal, Decol and Nicole. Two of the Pakistani citizens have been identified as Mohammad Nazir and Mohammad Hashim. The third is a woman.

The Pakistan Navy has cordoned off the area and the injured have been admitted to the city's Jinnah Hospital, where most of them are said to be serious.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but police is not ruling out the possibility of involvement of the Al-Qaeda terror network.

"We cannot rule out the involvement of Al-Qaeda but our suspicions are across the border," Sindh province police chief Syed Kamal Shah was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile in Paris, the French Foreign Ministry has described the blast as a car bomb explosion and said the French nationals worked for the Department of Naval Construction, attached to France's Defence Ministry. They were assisting the Pakistani Navy to construct Augusta class submarine.

This is the sixth explosion to rock Pakistan's southern port city in the past two weeks. At least three people were killed and nearly 20 have been injured in the past two weeks, excluding Wednesday's explosion.

The attack, first of its kind in Pakistan, was condemned by the military regime, which described it as an act of terrorism and an attempt to terrorise foreign nationals in the country. Stating that those who carried out the blast were enemies of the civilised world, Government spokesman Major Gen Rashid Qureshi said Pakistan would continue its support to the international community in its war against terrorism.

President Pervez Musharraf ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident, Pakistan's Information Minister, Nisar A Memon, told reporters in Islamabad following a high-level official meeting on security. Gen Musharraf told his security chiefs on Wednesday that Pakistan was being subjected to a systematic terrorist campaign. "The President strongly condemned the dastardly act and said Pakistan is being subjected to a systematic campaign of killing for its bold and courageous stand against international terrorism," said an official statement released after the General met his security and Intelligence advisers. He also spoke to French President Jacques Chirac and went on State television to tell the people that the attack was an attempt to "destabilise the country and vowed to continue his fight against terrorism."