10 killed as bombings target US consulate in Peshawar (Third Lead)

PESHAWAR - At least 10 people were killed as multiple bombings during rush hour Monday targeted the US consulate in the high-security zone of this northwestern Pakistan city, officials said.

Among the dead were four attackers, two security personnel and three foreigners, whose identities were, however, not immediately known.

The blasts came hours after a powerful explosion ripped through a political rally in the Lower Dir area of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). That attack occurred in Timer Girah sub-district of Lower Dir during a political rally taken out by the province’s Awami National Party (ANP).

The blasts in Peshawar, the capital of the NWFP, took place near the US consulate situated on Khyber road in the city’s Sadar area within a space of 20 minutes and were followed by heavy firing as the security forces moved in against the attackers.

The first blast occurred around 1.15 p.m. near the consulate’s checkpost and the second and third at 1.31 p.m. and 1.35 p.m. as the attackers attempted to ram their explosives-laden vehicles into the building’s gates, Online news agency reported.

The blasts were so intense that mobile phone services went on the blink for some time. Ambulances, with their sirens blaring, rushed to the area to carry the wounded to hospital.

One witness said it appeared to be a suicide attack.

“I saw the attackers in two vehicles. Some of them carried rocket-propelled grenades. They first opened fire at security personnel at the post near the consulate and then the blasts went off,” a Peshawar resident said.

The security forces asked journalists to keep away from the area as more blasts were feared.

The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Senior North West Frontier Minister Bashir Bilour told reporters at the site of the blasts that four attackers were among the dead.

“They brought in a lot of explosives and some are being disposed of. They were well-armed,” Bilour said.

“They came in two vehicles. The militants were well-equipped. It was a well-organised attack,” Bilour said, adding: “The situation is now under control.”

“They (the security forces) have killed four militants. Four dead bodies are lying on the spot. The whole area is encircled by the army. The militants were trying to enter the American consulate, but they did not succeed,” he said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the blasts and vowed to continue the war against terrorism to its logical conclusion.

The US too strongly condemned the terror attack on the consulate.

According to an embassy spokesperson in Islamabad, the US “is grateful for the support of Pakistan’s security forces in Peshawar, who responded quickly to this attack on the US consulate”.

“Personnel at the US consulate in Peshawar are at the forefront of US support for the government of Pakistan’s security and development agenda in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) and NWFP,” an embassy statement said.

At least two Pakistani security guards employed by the consulate were killed in the attack and a number of others were seriously wounded.

In Brussels, the European Union’s top diplomat Catherine Ashton condemned Peshawar and expressed the EU’s solidarity with Pakistan.

The attack was an attempt to undermine democracy in Pakistan, she said.

Some 600 people, mostly civilians, died in a series of blasts that rocked a vast region from the NWFP to Pakistan’s commercial capital Karachi in the last three months of 2009.

In the most horrendous of these bombings, 177 people, including a large number of women and children, were killed Oct 28, 2009, in a suicide attack at a crowded market in Peshawar.

The attacks are linked to the military operations being conducted against the Taliban in their North and South Waziristan tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan and which had begun in early October 2009.

Shaken by the Monday’s Peshawar blasts, the authorities have strengthened security at the Iranian and Afghan consulates in Balochistan capital Quetta.

Heavy police contingents have been deployed outside sensitive government installations and police patrolling has also been stepped up.

Security has been strengthening outside Governor House, the Chief Minister House, he civil secretariat and other important installations.