Suicide attacker kills 22 in Pakistan’s Lahore

At least 22 people were killed and 32 injured on Monday in a suspected suicide attack in Pakistan’s northeastern city of Lahore, emergency officials said.
Sameer Ahmed, city deputy commissioner, told reporters the fatalities included seven police officers.
The explosion occurred when a suspected suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden motorbike into police officers at a vegetable market in the densely-populated Ferozpur area, local broadcaster Geo News reported.
An initial investigation suggested that a lone suicide bomber targeted police, Deputy Inspector General of Punjab police Haider Ashraf told reporters.
Footage aired on Geo News showed rescue workers carrying the injured on their shoulders while running towards ambulances and private vehicles.
Giant plumes of thick smoke and flames billowed upward as several vehicles parked across the road caught fire soon after the blast.
Blood-soaked caps, shoes, pieces of clothes and human flesh lay strewn across the blast site, as paramilitary rangers were called in to join the rescue effort.
The city administration declared an emergency in hospitals and appealed for blood donations.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the death toll may climb due to the serious nature of injuries.
Last February, a blast outside the Punjab state assembly building in Lahore killed 13 people and injured more than 60.