Suicide blast kills at least 30 at Pakistani garrison (4th Lead)

Nov 2, 2009, 8:20 GMT

   Rawalpindi, Pakistan - A suicide bomber on a motorbike detonated explosives Monday in a busy commercial area in Pakistan's garrison town of Rawalpindi, killing at least 30 people and injuring dozens, police said.

   The blast occurred outside a state-run bank and a private hotel, a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Army's headquarters, which was attacked by Taliban militants last month.

   Aslam Tarin, the city's police chief, told reporters at the scene that at least 30 people were killed and 45 injured.

   The blast occurred when government employees and security personnel - mostly from the military - were withdrawing their salaries from the bank.

   Tarin said most of the dead were law enforcement personnel, adding that it was a suicide bombing carried out by a man riding a motorbike.

   'The explosives were apparently planted in the motorbike,' he said.

   The attacker hurled a hand grenade at people queued up outside the bank before detonating the bomb that damaged a nearby hotel and several cars waiting at a traffic signal.

   A rescue service spokesman put the death toll at 34 and injured at 36.

   'When I reached the scene there were dead and wounded people lying everywhere,' witness Shaukat Ali said. 'Some bodies did not have heads, and some were missing legs. People covered the women whose clothes were burnt by the explosion. It was so shameful.'

   No one claimed immediate responsibility for the bombing, but Taliban militants have intensified attacks on civilian and official targets as the military conducts a major offensive in their heartland of South Waziristan near the Afghan border

   Last week, a car bomb exploded in a crowded market in Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province, killing 119 people and injuring 200 more.

   The scene of Monday's blast was half a kilometre from the country's military headquarter,s where 10 gunmen held dozens of army officers and civilians for more than 20 hours last month. Twenty-three people, including nine attackers, died in the raid.

   Rawalpindi is located adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, which has also seen several attacks in recent months.

   One of the strikes was a suicide bombing at the office of the World Food Programme on October 5, which killed five UN employees.

   A United Nations statement issued Monday said it was partially withdrawing its staff from the province and the neighbouring tribal area because of the 'intense security situation in the region.'

   The world body has reduced its international staff members in North-West Frontier Province and Pakistan's tribal areas, keeping those workers 'vital for emergency, humanitarian relief, security operations or any other essential operations,' UN spokesman Ishrat Rizvi said.

   All other international UN staff members are to be relocated out of the north-western region.