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Suicide blasts at Pakistan arms complex kill 50

By ASIF SHAHZAD,Associated Press Writer AP - Friday, August 22

WAH, Pakistan - Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the gates of Pakistan's main weapons complex Thursday, killing 50 people and wounding 70, officials said.

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the bloodiest yet in Pakistan's intensifying war with insurgent groups that are also destabilizing Afghanistan.

The bombers struck at two different gates just as workers were leaving the sprawling arms facility in Wah, a garrison city 20 miles (35 kilometers) west of the capital, Islamabad.

Rana Tanveer, who was working at a bank about 200 yards (meters) from one of the gates where a bomber struck, said he was among the first to reach the scene.

"All around the gate I saw blood and human flesh. People helped the injured and took them in their cars and even on motorbikes to the hospital," he told The Associated Press. "Seven or eight people were already dead and another 10 people were breathing their last."

Asghar Mahmood, a doctor at the Pakistan Ordnance Factories hospital, said 50 were killed. Mohammed Azhar, another hospital official, said 70 others were wounded. Security officials said the death toll would likely rise.

Among more than a dozen bodies seen by an Associated Press Television News reporter at the hospital were two wearing military uniforms.

Pakistani forces are involved in an escalating battle with Islamic extremists in two nearby regions of the country's violence-plagued northwest, despite government efforts to negotiate peace with extremist groups.

Maulvi Umar, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant umbrella group, said the suicide bombings were revenge for airstrikes in Bajur, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border.

Umar said militants would carry out similar attacks in other major cities, including Islamabad and the southern port metropolis of Karachi, unless the military halts its operations.

"Only innocent people die when the Pakistan army carries out airstrikes in Bajur or Swat," he said, referring to a mountain valley where the army has vowed to clear out militants who have kidnapped and killed police and troops and burned girls' schools.

"If the army is really fond of fighting, it should send ground forces to see how we fight," Umar told AP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Regional police Chief Nasir Durrani said the bomber struck as workers were streaming out after a shift change at the weapons complex, Pakistan's largest.

"There are two torn bodies lying there which we believe are those of the suicide bombers," Durrani said.

Soldiers and police later sealed off the area and prevented reporters from approaching. Television footage showed workers struggling to lift a blackened corpse onto a stretcher. Crows as well as forensic teams picked through the scraps of flesh and scattered shoes.

Durrani said experts would try to reconstruct the bombers' faces to try to identify them.

Officials said the bombers managed to enter the cantonment area of the town undetected, but did not penetrate the tightly controlled complex.

Officials say the complex, which manufactures guns and ammunition, is on guard not only to stop anyone from gaining unauthorized entry, but also to prevent anyone trying to smuggle weapons and explosives out.

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