Twin blasts hit Pakistan market

[Coventina]

Source: Aljazeera

At least 24 people have been killed and 75 wounded in twin explosions at a busy marketplace in the northeast Pakistani city of Lahore.

The blasts took place on Monday at the Moon Market in Lahore's Iqbal Town locality, a senior police official said.

Witnesses said ambulances and rescue teams had reached the blast site, and the injured were being shifted to a nearby hospital.

" bomb attacks, near simultaneous, but it is not clear if it was a planted bomb or detonated in a vehicle. At least seven people were killed," Mohammad Khalid, a senior Lahore police official, said.

One of the blasts hit the outside of bank and one was in front of a police area, another police official said.


Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said: "This marketplace would have been packed. It's a place where families go to socialise. This underscores, yet again, how fragile and dangerous the situation in Pakistan is.

"Reports say there have been two separate blasts, but the pictures that we're seeing on local television here show mass fires breaking out ... it is likely the death toll will rise."

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/12/200912716236759812.html

[slackmaster]

1. Muslin extremists attacking a major fabric store?

:scared:

[maxsolomon]

2. must've been the Americans, the Jews, or the Indians

because Muslims don't kill other Muslims. :sarcasm:

[cosmicone]

3. lol n/t

[Arctic Dave]

4. Muslims do kill other muslims but if you take the totals of the last eight years we are definitely

number one. WooHoo!

[maxsolomon]

6. In Pakistan?

i don't think the drone attacks have killed as many as the bombings.

[Arctic Dave]

7. I would think that one would be too many considering we are not at war with Pakistan.

But the post said Muslin, not country of origin.

[maxsolomon]

8. OP is Pakistan-related

by comment relates to the NYT article yesterday wherein a "leading psychiatrist" from Pakistan blamed American, Jews, and Indians for all bombings, as Muslims don't kill Muslims.

we suck, but they hella suck, too. both populaces are willfully delusional.

[dgibby]

5. Bombs on the ground or drones? n/t

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

9. Hope posters will remember this next time they attempt to portray the Taliban

as poor, misunderstood nationalists.

[IndianaGreen]

10. This is the Pakistani Taliban, in Pakistan

Obama is sending troops to Afghanistan in a brilliant 12th dimensional chess move that has mesmerized the entire galaxy.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Dozens die in Pakistan blasts (TheTelegraph)

Dozens die in Pakistan blasts

Two blasts devastated a busy market and engulfed it in flames killing at least 36 people in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, while in the northwest provincial capital of Peshawar a suicide bomber killed 10 people.

Attacks blamed on Islamist militants have surged this year as Pakistan presses military offensives against the Taliban across the northwest, under fierce US pressure to do more to destroy the extremists' strongholds.

The popular Moon Market in the centre of eastern Lahore city was transformed into a scene of flames and rubble as night fell on Monday, when two bombs exploded 30 seconds apart outside a police station and a bank, officials said.

"There were two blasts, at least 36 people were killed," doctor Rizwan Naseer, the head of Lahore's rescue service, told reporters. He put the number of wounded at 95.

Lahore is a city of nearly eight million people, and is increasingly in the Taliban's crosshairs with five previous militant strikes this year killing more than 70 people.

The city of Peshawar in the northwest has borne the brunt of Taliban attacks avenging the operations against them, and was struck again around midday on Monday when a suicide bomber in a rickshaw approached a district courthouse.

The bomber detonated about 13lbs of explosives, killing 10 people including a policeman and wounding 44 others, said Zafar Iqbal, a senior doctor at Peshawar's main Lady Reading hospital.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/6755047/Dozens-die-in-Pakistan-blasts.html