Pakistan Views

At least 22 police were killed in a suicide bomb attack outside the Lahore High Court here on Thursday, officers said.The bomber set off a device packed with ball bearings when police stopped him outside the court.Up to 60 people, many of them police officers, were rushed to hospital after the explosion in the city’s main commercial district.The bodies of at least 11 dead police officers, dressed in full riot gear with protective vests and helmets, were seen lying side-by-side where they had fallen. A dead horse, still attached to a vendor’s cart, lay nearby. “Twenty-two policemen died in the attack, six are critically wounded,” Lahore police chief Malik Iqbal told AFP.”Around 35 have minor injuries. The suicide bomber approached the police picket and was signalled to stop,” Iqbal said.A wounded officer with his clothes apparently blown off by the force of the blast lay in the street screaming for help as security forces scrambled to cordon off the downtown area.Police said the head of the suspected suicide bomber had been found about 100 metres (330 feet) from the blast site, which was littered with the dead and wounded. The blast ripped through a busy square in front of the Lahore High Court as the riot police were gathering ahead of a protest by lawyers against the rule of President Pervez Musharraf. “There were a large number of police posted outside (the court) because the lawyers had planned a rally against the government today,” Cheema said.Witnesses described seeing the dead and wounded scattered among debris and body parts. “It was a very loud blast. I was one of the first who rushed out of the court and I saw a man bleeding from his nose and his mouth. He died minutes later,” said lawyer Khurram Latif Khosa.”I saw about 50 to 60 injured police, bleeding, scattered everywhere. They were asking for water. There were body parts on the ground.”After visiting the blast site Inspector General of Punjab Police Nasim Ahmed told reporters: “The target was the police force. “Today’s bombing was to demoralise the Punjab police, but it will not. They have given their lives while performing their duty.”He said the bomber was on foot and not on a motorcycle as initially reported by police.”Security has been put on high alert in Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab,” he added. “It will be doubled during Moharram starting on Friday.”The motive for Thursday’s attack is unknown. But police are bracing for more violence during the holy month of Moharram, a time of high tension between minority Shia and majority Sunni communities.More than 800 people have been killed in attacks — mainly suicide bombings targeting the security forces — in Pakistan over the past year, making 2007 the deadliest for militant violence in the country’s history.