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Blast outside KFC in Pakistan kills three
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-15 23:23
A powerful car bomb exploded outside a KFC restaurant in southern Pakistan on
Tuesday, setting off a massive fireball that overturned cars and shattered steel
and glass. Three people were killed and 22 injured.
Pakistan police and paramilitary officers
remove a dead body as smoke raises from burning vehicles after a bomb
blast out side the U.S. food franchise Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant
in Karachi, Pakistan on Tuesday, November 15, 2005. A powerful car bomb
exploded outside a KFC restaurant in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi
on Tuesday, killing at least three people and injuring 15 others, police
said. [AP] |
An ethnic Baluch nationalist group from southwestern Pakistan claimed
responsibility. A spokesman denied the group targeted civilians, saying it tried
to hit the offices of a state-owned oil and gas company above the KFC.
"We did it to protest, and we did it to pressure the government to get our
rights," Chakar Azam, spokesman for the Baluchistan Liberation Army, said in a
phone call to The Associated Press.
The powerful blast struck at about 8:45 a.m., as commuters were heading to
shops and offices in the crowded downtown area of Karachi, Pakistan's business
hub.
Mushtaq Shah, Karachi's police chief, told reporters the
bomb was concealed in a car parked outside the restaurant. Doctors said two men
died on the spot and a third died at a hospital.
Pakistani police officials carry a body from a
building after a bomb blast in Karachi November 15,
2005.[Reuters] |
Police explosives expert Mohammed Iqbal said the bomb was made from 11 pounds
of homemade explosives and detonated by a timer. The car containing the bomb was
blown to pieces, leaving a six-foot crater. Officers initially said the KFC
restaurant, part of the global American fast food chain, was the target.
Manzoor Mughal, a senior police investigator, said the blast also damaged the
offices of three Pakistani banks. One foreigner of unknown nationality was among
the injured, but was released from a hospital after being treated, he said.
Azam said the BLA targeted state-owned Pakistan Petroleum
Limited, which had offices in the floors above the KFC restaurant. The BLA
demands more government aid to Baluchistan, where Pakistan's main natural gas
fields are located.
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