ELECTION 99
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Series of blasts hit Islamabad

Four blasts hit Pakistan's capital Islamabad today near US and United Nations offices and the police said they also seized a burned-out vehicle with a twin-barrel rocket launcher near the US embassy.

The blasts came two days before UN sanctions backed by the United States were to go into effect against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban for not surrendering terrorism suspect Osama Bin Laden.

The imminent sanctions have already caused protests in Afghanistan, where the UN office in Kandahar was stoned during a demonstration by 50,000 people on Wednesday.

The sanctions ordered by the UN Security Council are to go into affect on Sunday unless the Taliban hands over Bin Laden, wanted in the United States on charges of masterminding bomb attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998 which killed more than 200 people.

The blasts came exactly one month after prime minister Nawaz Sharief's government was ousted in a bloodless military coup, but there was no apparent connection as the overthrow by army General Pervez Musharraf was greeted with widespread support in Pakistan. Sharief is in detention and has been accused of hijacking and kidnapping, which carry a death penalty.

The police said there were so far reports of only one injury. They said they did not know who was behind the attacks and no one had claimed responsibility.

One blast was near a US government office and the others were close to United Nations buildings and a UN vehicle.

''We are collecting information but there seem to be no major human casualties,'' a senior police officer at one of the blast sites said.

''It could have been rockets but we are investigating and cannot say anything before that,'' he said.

The police also seized a burned-out vehicle with a UN license plate near the US embassy in the heavily guarded diplomatic compound, which houses most of the embassies in Islamabad.

There was a twin-barrel rocket launcher in the vehicle.

''There were two (incidents) in the vicinity of US buildings but there were no Americans injured,'' said Mark Wentworth, a spokesman for the United States Information Service.

It was not known if the rockets in the vehicle were targeted at the US embassy.

Witnesses said a UN vehicle was hit by a rocket near the World Food Programme office.

There were also blasts in cars near the Saudipak Tower, which houses many UN agencies, and near a Pakistani government building close to UN offices.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report