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Car bombing kills 30, wounds 250 in Pakistan

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-27 21:03

Pakistani security officials gather as they examine the site of a bomb blast in Lahore May 27, 2009. [Agencies]

Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official in Lahore, told reporters a car carrying several gunmen pulled up on a street between offices of the emergency police and the intelligence agency, Pakistan's premier spy organization.

Related readings:  Official: Bombing kills about 30 in Pakistan  Blast hits Pakistan's Lahore, casualties feared  Bloody urban battles could lie ahead in Pakistan  Pakistan: 55 Taliban, 3 troops killed in Swat  Suicide car bomber kills 18 in Pakistan

"As some people came out from that vehicle and started firing at the ISI office, the guards from inside that building returned fire," he said. As the firing continued, the car suddenly exploded, he said.

The spy agency and police building were both badly damaged. An AP reporter saw dozens of troops entering the spy agency building to supervise the rescue work.

Police had little time to react to the gunshots before the blast.

"All of a sudden we heard a loud sound and the roof collapsed on us," said Mohammad Rehman, a police official who was wounded. "First of all though, we heard the sound of gunfire, then the blast occurred."

Malik blamed the attack on militants that government forces are fighting in the Swat Valley and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas border region that US and other officials believe al-Qaida and Taliban militants are using to plan attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan.

"These terrorists were defeated in FATA and Swat and now they have come here," he told reporters.

The offensive in Swat is seen as a test of the government's resolve to combat the spread of militancy, and is strongly backed by Washington and Pakistan's other Western allies. The army has said at least 1,100 militants have been left dead in the monthlong operation.

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