Suicide blasts at Pakistan arms complex kill 59

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of Pakistan's main weapons complex Thursday, killing 59 people and wounding 70, officials said.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the bloodiest yet in Pakistan's intensifying war with insurgent groups that are also destabilizing Afghanistan.

The bombers struck at two different gates just as workers were leaving the sprawling arms facility in Wah, a garrison city 20 miles west of the capital, Islamabad.

Rana Tanveer, who was working at a bank about 200 yards (meters) from one of the gates where a bomber struck, said he was among the first to reach the scene.

"All around the gate I saw blood and human flesh. People helped the injured and took them in their cars and even on motorbikes to the hospital," he told The Associated Press. "Seven or eight people were already dead and another 10 people were breathing their last."


Tanvir Lodhi, a spokesman for Pakistan Ordnance Factories, said 59 people were killed. Mohammed Azhar, a hospital official, said 70 others were wounded.

Among more than a dozen bodies seen by an AP Television News reporter at the hospital were two wearing uniforms, though an army spokesman said he had no information that security forces were among the dead.

Pakistani forces are involved in an escalating battle with Islamic extremists in two nearby regions of the country's violence-plagued northwest, despite government efforts to negotiate peace with extremist groups.

Maulvi Umar, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant umbrella group, said the suicide bombings were revenge for airstrikes in Bajur, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border.

Umar said militants would carry out similar attacks in other major cities, including Islamabad and the southern port metropolis of Karachi, unless the military halts its operations.

"Only innocent people die when the Pakistan army carries out airstrikes in Bajur or Swat," he said, referring to a mountain valley where the army has vowed to clear out militants who have kidnapped and killed police and troops and burned girls' schools.

"If the army is really fond of fighting, it should send ground forces to see how we fight," Umar told AP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Regional police Chief Nasir Durrani said the bomber struck as workers were streaming out after a shift change at the weapons complex, Pakistan's largest.

"There are two torn bodies lying there which we believe are those of the suicide bombers," Durrani said.

Soldiers and police later sealed off the area and prevented reporters from approaching. Television footage showed workers struggling to lift a blackened corpse onto a stretcher. Crows as well as forensic teams picked through the scraps of flesh and scattered shoes.

Durrani said experts would try to reconstruct the bombers' faces to try to identify them.

At the hospital, relatives searched frantically for loved ones as doctors worked to save those most seriously injured.

A young man who gave his name as Mohammad Asif stood wailing after identifying the lifeless body of his 60-year-old father in an ambulance.

"He was a humble man ... What wrong did he do to anyone? Why was he punished? These cruel people have taken away the great shadow of my father," Asif said.

The bombers managed to enter the cantonment area of the town undetected, but did not penetrate the tightly controlled weapons complex, which houses about a dozen factories.

According to the army, the factories produce rifles, machine guns and ammunition as well as grenades, and tank and artillery shells. Abbas said the perimeter is guarded by a dedicated paramilitary force.

Experts have suggested that facilities related to Pakistan's secretive nuclear weapons program are located in the Wah area, possibly including a uranium enrichment plant. Abbas insisted the complex attacked on Thursday was producing only conventional weapons.

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Blasts near Pakistan ordnance plant kill 59

21 Aug 2008 13:36:50 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Updates toll, adds Taliban comment)

By Augustine Anthony

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside Pakistan's main defence industry complex on Thursday as workers were leaving at the end of their shift, killing 59 people, officials said.

Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is on the front line of the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism and al Qaeda-linked militants have launched a wave of attacks on the security forces over the past year, bombing military camps, patrols and transport.

The violence combined with political uncertainty has helped undermine investor confidence and send the country's financial markets on a downward spiral.

"There were bodies lying everywhere and wounded people soaked in blood were screaming for help," said Shah, the manager of a petrol station near the industrial complex in Wah, 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Islamabad.

"Many of the wounded were either without legs or hands. I could see body parts hanging on trees," he said.

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman said the blasts were retaliation for military operations against militants in the northwestern region of Bajaur, on the Afghan border.

"If it doesn't stop we will continue such attacks," Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar said by telephone.

"The Wah factory is a killer factory where arms are being produced to kill our women and children," he said.

A hospital official said 59 people had been killed and 81 wounded in the blasts near the heavily guarded complex, the hub of Pakistan's defence industry where about 25,000 workers produce explosives, ordnance and weapons in about 15 factories.

Hundreds of workers were milling about outside the complex at the end of their shift when the bombers struck.

GOVERNMENT VOW

One of the bombers blew himself up outside the complex's main gate while the second detonated his explosives at almost the same time near another gate, said police officer Sardar Shahbaz.

Soldiers cordoned off the area and kept reporters back as ambulances arrived to take away casualties, a witness said.

Pakistani Taliban said last week they were behind a bomb attack on an air force bus in the city of Peshawar which killed 13 people. The blast was in retaliation for military operations in the northwest, a militant spokesman said.

Since July last year, Pakistan has suffered a wave of militant violence, particularly in the northwest, in which hundreds of people have been killed including many security force members.

Violence subsided when a coalition government that came to power after a February election opened talks with militants but it picked up again after their top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, suspended the talks in June.

This week's resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, under threat of impeachment from the ruling coalition, has raised questions about the government's commitment to tackle violence.

Although Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism was deeply unpopular, the government has vowed to keep up efforts to fight the militants.

But the first days since Musharraf's departure have seen squabbling among the ruling parties, raising concern about the government's ability to deal with security and economic problems and bring political stability.

Share and currency markets have dropped in the last two days after initial gains on Musharraf's exit. Pakistan's stock market, which rose for six years to 2007, and was the best performing in Asia in that period, has fallen about 27 percent this year. (Additional reporting by Sheree Sardar) (Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)