Bomb kills 3 outside Karachi KFC: police
By Aamir Ashraf
KARACHI (Reuters) – A car bomb exploded outside a KFC
fast-food restaurant in the Pakistani city of Karachi on
Tuesday, killing three people and wounding 15 in an attack
thought to have been carried out by Islamist militants, police
and doctors said.
Some victims suffered severe burns in the bombing, which
blew a meter-wide (3-feet-wide) hole in the street and engulfed
it in a fireball that gutted six or seven other parked cars in
the center of the southern city, Pakistan’s commercial hub.
“I thought it was an earthquake,” said security guard
Hassan Ali, being treated in hospital for head injuries and
bandaged over his left eye. He said he had passed out during
the blast.
Provincial authorities said they suspected Islamist
militants might be to blame and cast doubt on a claim of
responsibility by a separatist group from nearby Baluchistan
province which said it had targeted an office of a state-run
Pakistani oil company.
A small Suzuki sedan blew up just before 9 a.m. (0400 GMT),
gutting the restaurant on the ground floor of the six-storey
office block, and shattering all the windows in the building
which houses several oil and gas exploration firms, including
Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) which runs Pakistan’s largest gas
field in Baluchistan.
“Indications are that extremist and militant organizations
could be involved in the blast. The blast got instant publicity
the world over and that’s what the militants want,” said
Salahuddin Haider, spokesman for the Sindh provincial
government in Karachi.
Police said they had found some clues from security cameras
mounted on the Pakistan Industrial Development Corp building,
which houses the KFC outlet and is also near two luxury hotels
and the home of Sindh province’s chief minister. England’s
touring cricket team is due to stay in the area next month.
“This is an act of terrorism and apparently the KFC was the
target,” Manzoor Mughal, chief of investigation for Karachi
police, told Reuters.
The restaurant was shut at the time, but the street, one of
Karachi’s busiest, was full of people arriving for work.
Two security guards for the Muslim Commercial Bank died at
once and a third died later in hospital, police said.
Doctors said six people had been admitted to hospital in a
critical condition, some with severe burns. The materials used,
5 kg (11 lb) of military-style RDX explosive and gunpowder,
made the blast particularly intense, police added.
Two other KFC restaurants, a Pakistani franchise of the
global food chain owned by YUM Brands Inc, have been attacked
in Karachi in recent months.
BLAST FOLLOWS CRACKDOWN
President Pervez Musharraf ordered a crackdown in July on
militant groups, particularly those fuelling hatred between
Pakistan’s majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shi’ites.
Some Sunni militant groups, infuriated by Musharraf siding
with the United States in its war on terrorism, have forged
ties with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.
Karachi police said any of several Islamist militant groups
targeted in the crackdown could have carried out the attack,
but authorities were not ruling out any options. “It will be
premature to blame anybody for this,” Interior Minister Aftab
Ahmed Khan Sherpao told local television.
Another KFC restaurant and a McDonald’s outlet came under
attack in September in Karachi. Two bombs exploded in quick
succession in those attacks, injuring at least two people.
In May, six KFC employees were burned to death when their
restaurant was torched by a mob during an outbreak of Muslim
sectarian violence, which has plagued the city for years.
England’s cricket team is due to play a one-day
international in Karachi on December 15. The tourists only
agreed to play there after much persuasion from Pakistan’s
cricket authorities.
In May 2002, New Zealand’s cricket team flew home without
playing a test after a suicide bomb attack on a bus outside its
Karachi hotel. That blast killed 11 French naval technicians.
(Additional reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore and Mark
Bendeich)