Pakistan attacks kill 43, target US consulate

Peshawar, PAKISTAN (Agencies) Militants using a car bomb and firing weapons attacked the U.S. consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday hours after a suicide bomber killed 43 people elsewhere in the northwest, officials said.

Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack on the consulate, in which eight people including three militants were killed but no one in the mission was hurt, and vowed more violence.
The United States condemned the consulate attack and expressed “great concern” after Islamist militants targeted the building in Pakistan’s northwestern capital.
The apparently coordinated attacks were the deadliest so far this year in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where the government is closely allied to the U.S.-led war against al-Qaeda and in neighboring Afghanistan.
The ability of heavily-armed militants to get so close to the U.S. mission and other military installations, such as the provincial headquarters of Pakistan’s premier spy agency, will raise further questions about insecurity.
Up to 15 militants armed with explosives and driving in two vehicles targeted the heavily guarded U.S. consulate in Peshawar, a city of 2.5 million on the edge of Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt, setting off multiple explosions.
“The target was certainly the American consulate but they didn’t succeed in getting there,” Pakistani police officer Ghulam Hussain told AFP.
“One of the suicide bombers blew himself up close to the gate. Police guarding the U.S. consulate started retaliatory fire. More blasts took place. We have recovered unexploded material from four different points,” he said.

Successive explosions

Three powerful explosions and bouts of gunfire echoed through the area, where an AFP reporter said the attacks occurred at a checkpoint about 20 meters (yards) from the U.S. consulate where heavy thick smoke spewed into the sky.
“We can confirm there has been an attack on the U.S. consulate Peshawar facilities,” U.S. embassy spokeswoman Ariel Howard told AFP, unable to provide any details about the nature of the attack, possible damage or casualties.
Pakistani police and army sealed off the area, preventing journalists from accessing the scene and later carried out a number of controlled explosions.
A provincial cabinet minister said four militants, a policeman and another person were killed during the attack.
“They came in two vehicles. The militants were well-equipped. It was a well-organized attack,” Bashir Ahmed Bilour, senior minister in the North West Frontier Province government headquartered in the city, told reporters.
“The situation is now under control,” he said, following a gun battle between the assailants and security forces.
“The militants were trying to enter the American consulate, but they did not succeed,” he said.
It was not clear whether some of the assailants may have escaped.
Peshawar lies on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal belt — branded by Washington a global headquarters of al-Qaeda — and has been subject to numerous attacks by Islamist militants, although recent months have seen a relative lull.
Around 3,200 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks over the last three years in Pakistan, blamed on militants opposed to the U.S. alliance in the war on al-Qaeda and against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

Political rally

Earlier on Monday, a suicide bomber attacked an open-air rally in the northwest district of Lower Dir, where Pakistan waged a major offensive against local Taliban insurgents last year.
The attack killed 43 people during a celebration organized by the leading secular political party in northwest and was the deadliest in Lower Dir since the anti-Taliban offensive.
Residents reportedly said a bomb exploded close to the stage at the political gathering.
The Awami National Party (ANP) said it organized the meeting to celebrate plans to rename North West Frontier Province — Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, as laid out in a package of constitutional reform being debated in the federal parliament.
The new name honors the Pashtun-majority population in the province, replaces a name that dates back to British colonial rule and is part of efforts to devolve greater authority to the provinces.
Lower Dir borders Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt, where suspected Taliban armed with petrol bombs and rockets torched eight tankers used to supply fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan before dawn on Monday, officials said.
Dozens of fighters launched the attack at Zakha Khel in the tribal district of Khyber, local administration chief Shafeerullah Wazir told AFP.