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Blast Outside KFC in Pakistan Kills Three

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 00:00 CST

By AFZAL NADEEN

KARACHI, Pakistan - A powerful car bomb exploded outside the front entrance to a KFC restaurant in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi early Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring 12 others, police said.

The blast, which went off about 8:45 a.m., badly damaged the restaurant, part of the global American fast food chain, burning several cars along the street in front.

Mushtaq Shah, Karachi's police chief, told reporters the bomb was concealed in a car parked outside the restaurant.

Another police official, Sanaullah Abbasi, said three people were killed in the blast and 12 injured.

The bomb struck as commuters were heading to offices and shops in the crowded business hub. Hundreds of people gathered at the site near the Pearl Intercontinental Hotel that is popular with foreign tourists and business people.

"I can see that the KFC building is burning, six cars have caught fire and injured people are lying on the road," said Saeed Mohammad, a traffic police official who rushed to the scene after hearing the blast.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is a hotbed of Muslim militancy and previous bombings in the city have been linked to Islamic extremists opposed to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's close ties to the United States. Pakistan has been a key ally in the struggle against Muslim extremists tied to al-Qaida and Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.

Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, condemned the blast, calling it the work of the "enemies of Pakistan."

The restaurant occupies the ground floor of a government office building housing the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation. Firefighters prevented the blaze from spreading to other parts of the building.

Two bodies were pulled from the KFC restaurant while another man lay dead at the restaurant's entrance, eyewitnesses said. The injured included security guards at the building and nearby banks.

It was the second attack on Western fast food restaurants in Karachi in recent months. Bombs struck KFC and McDonalds restaurants in Karachi in September, injuring three people in attacks suspected of being linked to a nationwide strike called by a hardline Islamic coalition opposed to Musharraf.

A KFC restaurant in Karachi was also burned in May, killing six workers inside during an outbreak of religious violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups in the city.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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