Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Local officials in the town of Dera Ghazi Khan in Pakistan said on Tuesday that at least twenty people were killed after a suicide car bomber attacked the house of a provincial governor. The Al Jazeera news agency reports that seventy people were injured from the blast.
According to Siddiq-ul-Farooq, a spokesman for the Pakistan Muslim League, the bomber drove his car into the wall of Dost Muhammad Khosa’s home, damaging it. Khosa and his relatives, however, were not at home, Farooq added. The house was reportedly close to a market, which also suffered from the explosion.
A reporter for Al Jazeera, however, noted that it wasn’t immediately clear if Khosa was intended as a target in Tuesday’s attack.
“There are many people trapped in the rubble after the powerful blast demolished some 10 shops […] The rescue work is under way and we fear the toll may go up. It was a terrorist activity, similar to those being carried out in other parts of the country,” said town commisioner Hasan Iqbal.
A local resident, Raza Khan, was witness to the chaos that resulted after the detonation. “The whole market has collapsed. There is smoke and people running here and there,” he said to the Associated Press. A local health official told Agence France-Presse news agency that “the hospital in the town has been crowded by people looking for their relatives. Rescue efforts are still going on.”