Eleven killed in car bomb attack on US consulate

Suicide bombing in Karachi is the latest in a series of atrocities that may accelerate a further exodus from Pakistan

A huge car bomb in Karachi killed at least 11 people and destroyed part of the compound wall of the American consulate yesterday. All the dead and most of the 40 injured were Pakistani nationals, although one American consulate employee was slightly injured by flying wreckage.

There were early claims by police that the suicide bombing was the work of al-Qa'ida but it was later claimed by a previously unknown group, Al Qanoon. Police said they were taking the claim seriously.

President George Bush condemned the attack by "radical killers" as "a vivid reminder of the fact that our nation is at war against terrorists who use any means at their disposal to harm Americans and others".

Major-General Rashid Qureshi, press spokesman for President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, said: "There could be a number of agencies and a number of groups responsible. A number of extremist groups are very upset at Pakistan aligning itself against terrorism in the world.

"There are foreign intelligence agencies that do not want Pakistan to progress." The last comment was a veiled reference to India's Research and Analysis Wing, the military intelligence agency often blamed by Pakistan for terrorist incidents.

The blast came the morning after the departure from Pakistan of Donald Rumsfeld, the American Defence Secretary. During his tour of the region, Mr Rumsfeld had striven to narrow differences between India and Pakistan, the nuclear-armed neighbours that have been close to war for more than six months.

Under pressure from America and Britain, General Musharraf has taken steps to shut off covert state support to thousands of Islamic radicals who have been sneaking into Indian-controlled Kashmir over the past 11 years, attacking Indian security forces there in the name of Islamic jihad.

Now he is struggling to control the backlash, as heavily armed fighters turn to bite the hand that until so recently fed them. The position is complicated by the presence of fugitive Taliban and al-Qa'ida warriors in Pakistan; at least 400 have been detained by the Pakistani Army, but an unknown number are believed to be still at large.

A senior figure in al-Qa'ida, Abu Zubeida, was picked up weeks ago from the central Pakistani city of Faisalabad in a joint Pakistan-FBI operation.

Yesterday's suicide bomber used a Suzuki minivan that sped along the busy dual carriageway skirting the American consulate in central Karachi, then swerved and crashed into the guard post at the consulate's gate, exploding instantly. The impact hurled the van across the road and killed several motorists and motorcyclists who were passing. A nearby park was littered with wreckage.

Private security guards and police protecting the American mission are believed to be among the dead.

The attack was the latest in a series of atrocities which, combined with the possibility of Indo-Pakistani nuclear war, have persuaded foreign missions to scale down their staff and many expatriates to leave. This new attack can only accelerate the exodus.

A month ago, a car packed with explosives rammed into a bus outside Karachi's Sheraton Hotel. The bus had just come from another hotel where it had picked up a group of French engineers building a submarine for Pakistan's Navy. Eleven French nationals and three Pakistanis were killed in the massive blast and at least 23 people injured. France promptly pulled all its nationals out of the submarine project.

Only very recently has Pakistan become a palpably dangerous place to be a Westerner.

During the early months of the war on terrorism, more than a thousand foreign journalists roamed the country, covering events such as demonstrations by fundamentalists against America and Britain without mishap. The Independent's Robert Fisk, badly beaten by villagers in Baluchistan, was the unlucky exception.

The sea change came in January, with the kidnapping and grisly killing of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal South Asia correspondent.

After an equally bold attack in March by suspected Islamic radicals on a Protestant church in Islamabad, Jack Straw said: "This is part of a continuing effort by dissident extremist terrorists to try to destabilise President Musharraf's government and the support which he enjoys from around the world."

President Musharraf, a secular, modern-minded general whose hostility to fundamentalists is well known, asked his nation in a speech on 12 January: "Do we want Pakistan to become a theocratic state? Or do we want Pakistan to emerge as a progressive and dynamic Islamic welfare state?"

He concluded: "We are conscious that we need to rid society of extremists."

Gour anti-western attacks in five months

23 January The journalist Daniel Pearl is kidnapped in Karachi. He was killed some time over the next four weeks. A group with links to al-Qa'ida claimed responsibility.

17 March A grenade attack on a church in the diplomatic quarter of Islamabad kills two Americans.

8 May Eleven French engineers are among 14 people killed when a suicide bomber blows up a bus in Karachi. No direct link with al-Qa'ida, but Pakistan believes it was responsible.

Yesterday A suicide bomber kills at least 11 people outside the US consulate in Karachi.