Islamabad, October 06: Five people, including two women and an Iraqi national, were killed and four injured in a suicide bomb blast at the United Nations World Food Programme office here on Monday.
The UN reacted strongly to the incident and immediately closed down all its offices in Pakistan.
“Preliminary investigation shows that the bomber had disguised in the uniform of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters at the site of the explosion.
The assailant had slipped into inner sections of the heavily-guarded building, on the pretext of going to the toilet, where he planted a bomb.
Senior Superintendent of Police Tahir Alam said the dead included Gul Mukhtar, a receptionist, Farzana Barkat, an assistant at WFP, and Boton Ali, an Iraqi national.
The interior minister said some people, including the guards, have been detained for interrogation. He said all law enforcement agencies had been alerted that terrorists posing as soldiers or policemen may attempt bombings. A probe has been ordered into why the alert went apparently unheeded at the WFP building.
“I went to my office on the first floor and, as I sat on my chair, there was a huge blast,” WFP official Arshad Jadoon told Reuters outside the tightly guarded office in a residential area of Islamabad. “All of a sudden, a smoke cloud enveloped the building and we came out where wounded people were lying,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the attack was a heinous crime. “This is a terrible tragedy for the UN and for the whole humanitarian community in Pakistan,” he said in a statement condemning the bombing.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.
The blast shattered windows in the lobby of the building and left victims lying on the ground in pools of blood, witnesses said. The office is close to a home belonging to President Asif Ali Zardari.
Security camera footage broadcast on local TV shows the bomber walking through a door into what appears to be the main building carrying a two-foot- long cylindrical object — possibly a detonator — in one hand. Seconds later, a bright flash fills the screen.
The incident has raised question about security in the capital.
–Agencies