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Suicide blast kills 22, injures 70 in Lahore

A suicide bomber blew himself up among police deployed outside a court in eastern Pakistan ahead of a planned anti-government protest yesterday, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 70.

The blast in front of Lahore High Court was the latest in a wave of attacks targeting politicians and security forces ahead of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion will likely fall on militants linked to Taliban and al-Qaeda.

It came as investigators from Scotland Yard visited forensic laboratories elsewhere in Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province, to examine evidence in the assassination two weeks ago of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi, a garrison city to the north.

"There were about 60 to 70 policemen on duty when a man rammed into our ranks and soon there was a huge explosion," said police officer Syed Imtiaz Hussain, who suffered wounds to his legs and groin.

"I saw the bodies of other policemen burning. It was like hell," he said.

The explosion left wounded people lying in pools of blood crying for help. TV footage showed at least four mangled bodies on the ground close to a destroyed motorbike and a piece of smoking debris. Ambulance workers loaded victims onto stretchers as police sirens wailed in the background.

The blast fired shrapnel as far as 100m away. It also shattered windows in the court house and set off volleys of tear gas shells carried by the police, preventing people getting close to the victims in the seconds after the attack, witnesses said.

Lahore chief of police operations Aftab Cheema said the bomber had run up to a barrier manned by police and blown himself up. He said 20 policemen and two civilians were killed. More than 70 others were wounded, including civilian passers-by, officials said.

"It was a suicide attack," Lahore police chief Malik Iqbal told Dawn News TV.

He said police were "definitely" targeted.

An Associated Press photographer at the scene of the attack saw the severed head of a man with long hair and beard. Police bomb disposal experts estimated the bomb contained up to 14kg of explosives.

The police had been deployed in front of the court ahead of a weekly lawyers' protest against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf over his sacking of Supreme Court judges in November.

The rally had been scheduled to start about 15 minutes before the bomb went off. About 200 lawyers were inside the High Court at the time of the blast, and others were marching from a nearby district court.
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