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Pakistani naval college attacked

Rescue workers and firefighters assess the damage at the Naval War College after a suicide attack in Lahore, Pakistan, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

A suspected suicide attack on a prestigious naval college in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore yesterday killed at least five people, the navy said.

Police and witnesses said at least three blasts were heard at the Naval War College in the center of the bustling city, Pakistan's second biggest, causing chaos and a major fire.

"We have heard that around five people are dead, it looks like a suicide attack on the Pakistan Naval War College," navy spokesman Captain Akbar Naqi said, without being able to give details on the number of explosions.

State TV earlier reported that five people were killed and seven injured when three successive blasts rocked the college.

TV footage showed ambulances and fire trucks rushing to the scene of the blast, which was shrouded in thick smoke and littered with debris.

"I saw a fully charred body," a photographer at the scene said. "A black cloud of smoke was rising from the scene as I reached there."

The attack was the fourth in five days in Pakistan, posing a major challenge to the country's incoming government, set to be a coalition led by the parties of slain former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

A teenage bomber blew himself up at a meeting of tribal elders discussing how to tackle al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the northwestern town of Darra Adam Khel on Sunday, killing 43 people.

On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least 44 people in the northwestern Swat valley at the funeral for a policeman killed in a roadside bombing. On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed two people in the lawless Bajaur tribal district.

The army's top medical officer, Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, was killed in a suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Feb. 25.

About 600 people have died across the northwest of Pakistan since the start of the year in clashes between pro-Taliban militants and security forces.

Pakistani troops opened fire on a pick-up truck carrying Islamic militants in a troubled tribal area, blowing up the vehicle and killing five rebels, the military said yesterday.

The latest attack occured while the chief of the US military held talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and the army top brass on his second visit to the crucial "war" on terror ally in a month, officials said.
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