At least 26 killed in Lahore Taliban suicide blast that targeted police
A suicide bomber killed at least 26 people, many of them police, in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday, officials said, an attack which shattered a period of relative calm in Pakistan's second-largest city. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack which wrought carnage near the Lahore Technology Park in the centre of the city. Police deployed to clear street vendors from the area had been targeted, a police official said.
"We suspect that he (the suicide bomber) came on a motorcycle and he rammed it into a police checkpoint," Lahore police operations chief Haider Ashraf said.
Rescue workers shifted the wounded to hospital and police officers cordoned off the bomb site as army troops also arrived at the scene.
"The death toll we have now is 26 dead and 52 are wounded," said Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman for the Rescue 1122 service.
A wounded man sitting on the roadside was shown crying in pain on television amidst cars and motorcycles mangled by the blast.
The bombing was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, in a message sent to the media by spokesman Muhammad Khurassani. The Pakistani Taliban are loosely allied with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents but focus their attacks on the Pakistani government.
"The death toll we have now is 26 dead and 52 are wounded," said Jam Sajjad Hussain, spokesman for the Rescue 1122 service.
A wounded man sitting on the roadside was shown crying in pain on television amidst cars and motorcycles mangled by the blast.
The bombing was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, in a message sent to the media by spokesman Muhammad Khurassani. The Pakistani Taliban are loosely allied with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents but focus their attacks on the Pakistani government.
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