New Attack on Foreign Missions in Pakistan
 |
|
Pakistan police examine the scene of the blast |
By Asif Farooqi, IOL Pakistan correspondent
ISLAMABAD, August 9 (IslamOnline) - An early morning raid on a Christian hospital near Islamabad on Friday August 9, 2002, left three nurses and one attacker killed, when they were coming out of church located within the hospital premises.
Three un-identified attackers hurled grenades on the hospital staff at Mission Hospital Taxila, an ancient town 20 kilometers west of Islamabad.
“There were more than 30 people gathered at the hospital compound when the attack took place. Twenty were injured and three nurses confirmed dead,” a senior police officer told IslamOnline on the phone.
He said one attacker was also killed. He was not sure whether it was a suicide attack or the attacker was killed by the guards stationed at the nearby entry gate. Two of the attackers managed to flee.
The incident came just four days after six Pakistanis were shot dead in a gun attack on a Christian missionary school for foreign students in the resort town of Murree.
Pakistani officials said the raid on the school appeared to be aimed at the foreign community rather than at a minority faith in Muslim-majority Pakistan. Many foreign doctors and nurses serve in this missionary hospital. Usually most of the hospital staff attend early morning church prayer in the hospital premises. But the practice was being abandoned by the western hospital employees from growing security concerns in the country.
This is the fourth deadly attack on foreign targets in Pakistan this year. In March, five people including the wife and daughter of an American diplomat died in a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad. Twelve French engineers were killed in a car bomb explosion in the southern port city of Karachi in May. Earlier in January a U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi.
All these terrorist acts have been blamed on the Islamic militants having sympathies with Taliban and Al-Qaeda to revenge Pakistan’s support for U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.
In a separate related development, and following the earlier closure of the U.S. Karachi consulate, the Italian Embassy, in Islamabad, announced that it was closing down its visa section in the southern violent port city, an Embassy announcement said Friday August 9, 2002.
"For security reasons the consulate is closing its visa section for public access indefinitely," the Karachi consulate of the Italian embassy announced in a statement.
The closure of the Italian consulate came four days after the U.S. consulate shut its offices in Karachi.
The U.S. consulate was closed after a suicide car bomb attack outside the consulate on June 14 killed 12 Pakistanis.
France moved its consular offices into the British consulate building early this month for security reasons, again in Karachi.
Karachi has been center of terrorist activities, targeting especially foreigners. 12
French engineers died in a suicide car-bomb attack in Karachi in May. U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and killed in Karachi in January this year. These attacks have been blamed on Islamic militants opposed to the government’s policy to support U.S. in its anti-terror campaign.
|
|
|
