Pakistan bomb blast kills 6
Two policemen, a janitor and passersby die in the car bombing outside the Danish Embassy in Islamabad. Some fear the attack is the handiwork of a resurgent Al Qaeda.
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — A car bombing that killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others Monday near the Danish Embassy raised fears that Al Qaeda-linked militants might be moving to fill a void left by other Islamist fighters seeking truces with Pakistan's new government.
The powerful blast occurred just outside the embassy gates in a leafy, upscale neighborhood of Islamabad, the capital. The mission has been the target of angry protests over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad published in Danish newspapers.
It was the second bombing in less than three months aimed at foreigners or foreign interests in Islamabad.
The explosion, which could be heard across much of the normally tranquil city, shattered windows in the embassy building, left a deep crater in the road outside and wrecked dozens of vehicles parked nearby. Panicked neighbors ran into the street, calling for help.
The dead included two policemen, a janitor at the embassy and passersby, officials said. Most embassy personnel no longer work in the building, in the wake of protests this year after Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoons first published in 2005.
The force of the explosion, which came during lunch hour, twisted the embassy's heavy metal gates and knocked down a section of the wall surrounding the building.
Ayman Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's second in command, recently urged followers to strike at Danish targets over the cartoons. The blast, coming after weeks of relative calm in Pakistan, suggested that the government may remain vulnerable to such attacks even if it can make peace with so-called local Taliban militants.
Pakistan's ruling coalition, led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, condemned the attack. Officials, however, said they would not be deterred from negotiating with Islamic militants based in Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan and elsewhere in the country's volatile northwest.
Those talks have resulted in truce accords with some smaller militant groups but not with Baitullah Mahsud, the leader of the main umbrella group of Pakistani Taliban. Pakistani officials and the CIA have accused Mahsud, who is thought to have ties to Al Qaeda, of masterminding the Dec. 27 assassination of Bhutto, a charge he has denied.
Until now, groups like Mahsud's have cited Pakistani government policies as a pretext for their attacks. Monday's bombing suggested that wider Western interests also could be targeted.
