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Pakistan

At least 20 killed in Punjab bomb blast

A bomb attack by a suspected Islamist militant tore through a filling station in Faisalabad in Pakistan's central Punjab province on Tuesday killing at least 20 people and injuring 127 more. There are fears the death toll could rise after TV images showed the station had been reduced to a pile of bricks. 

Reuters/Fayyaz Hussain
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City commissioner Tahir Husain told television reporters that rescue officials were heaving bricks and metal away from the scene to search for survivors.

He said that the attack was not carried out by a suicide bomber. "It was not a suicide attack. It was a planted bomb blast. The bomb exploded near the gas cylinders that triggered a bigger blast," he said.

Husain added that the attack could have targeted government buildings close to the filling station which sold compressed natural gas for vehicles.

Pakistan has seen an increase in violence against security officials. Some 4,000 people have died in attacks blamed on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters since Pakistan troops stormed a militant mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.

On Saturday, at least one person was killed and another wounded when a bomb exploded inside a house in Pakistan's biggest city Karachi.

 

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