Deadly blasts fuel anger at Musharraf

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN —  The government and opposition parties joined in condemning two suicide bombings that killed 24 people in the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, attacks that were blamed on Islamic militants but that also served to galvanize public anger at President Pervez Musharraf.

The first and more powerful blast wrecked a regional security headquarters, killing at least 21 people and injuring scores of others in one of the boldest attacks yet against a Pakistani government installation. A second, apparently synchronized explosion moments later in a residential district of the city killed three people, two of them reported to be children.

The attacks underscored the deteriorating security situation faced by the new government being formed in the wake of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections that swept opposition parties to power. The new parliament could convene as early as Monday, Musharraf said.

The explosions marked the third time in two months that attackers hit government or military targets in Lahore, the country’s cultural capital.

The blast at the regional headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency was so powerful that it tore the facade off the seven-story building, sending a shower of bricks and debris onto a busy thoroughfare in the city center.

The explosion set cars on fire, shattered windows and even uprooted a big tree. Flying glass and shrapnel hit a nearby school, injuring more than a dozen students.

Hundreds of staffers were in the security building at the time of the explosion, which came shortly after most of them had arrived at work. As rescue workers arrived, screams could be heard from people trapped under collapsed masonry.

The target in the second attack was not immediately clear, although it took place about 50 yards from a residence rented by Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated Dec. 27.

Zardari was in the capital, Islamabad, at the time of the attack. The house that was the hardest hit was occupied by an advertising agency. Those killed were the groundskeeper and his two children, local police said.

The Federal Investigation Agency mainly handles cases involving illegal immigration and human trafficking, but the landmark downtown building also housed a regional unit of the anti-terrorism police. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said it appeared Islamic militants were targeting security and law enforcement agencies in an effort to intimidate the incoming government.

“We’re going through a very crucial phase of transition,” the spokesman, Javed Iqbal Cheema, told reporters. “Perhaps one answer could be that the terrorists are trying to put maximum pressure on the government in the making.”

The two main opposition parties, those of Bhutto and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, have said they will form a coalition government and take steps to curtail Musharraf’s presidential powers.

Musharraf condemned Tuesday’s attacks as “savage” and said the government would not be deterred in its fight against militants. That confrontation has intensified sharply over the last year, and more than 500 people have been killed in militant-related attacks and fighting this year.

Zardari and Sharif also denounced the violence, but Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, said Musharraf was to blame because of government mishandling of dealings with the militants. Near the blast site, demonstrators shouted slogans against the president.

“Musharraf is a dog!” they yelled. “Musharraf is a pimp!”

Until recently, Lahore had largely been spared the suicide attacks that occurred with numbing regularity elsewhere in the country, particularly its troubled northwest. But on Jan. 10, a suicide bomber killed at least two dozen people outside a courthouse, and five people were killed in an attack last week on a naval college.

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Special correspondent Zaidi reported from Islamabad and Times staff writer King from Istanbul, Turkey.