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CNN Live Today

U.S. Embassy, Consulates in Pakistan Closed Following Suicide Bombing

Aired June 14, 2002 - 14:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WHITFIELD: More evidence now of the ongoing dangers in the ongoing fight against terrorism. The U.S. embassy and all U.S. consulates are closed in Pakistan after a suicide bombing in Karachi. Eleven people were killed and dozens were wounded in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi.

CNN's Chris Burns is there, and he joins us by videophone now -- hi there, Chris.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. A very eerie scene tonight. Over my shoulder across the street is the U.S. consulate, and if we can push in a little bit over there, you can a bit of the scene. That is the wall. On the other side of that wall where the car exploded, blowing a hole through that outer wall of this bunker-like consulate. Outside beyond there, there are investigators trying to piece through what actually happened there.

A car is scattered all over the police still at this hour. They have left it in the same place where they were to determine exactly what was the cause, how it happened. At the last word, there is a claim of responsibility by the group, a group called al-Kanon (ph), or "the law." In their message, they say America, its allies and its slaved Pakistani rulers should be prepared for more attacks. Police say that they have never heard of that group. This was a message that was given to a number of newspapers here in Karachi, but nobody has heard of this group before. However, police say that they are taking this threat quite seriously.

This comes, of course, on the heels of other terror attacks. One last month here in Karachi, a suicide car bombing that killed 11 French nationals. A couple of months before in Islamabad in a church, there was a grenade suicide attack that killed five people, including two Americans.

So jittery tensions here within the country as President Pervez Musharraf has been cracking down in recent months on Muslim militants, not only within Pakistan, but also those who have been crossing into Indian-controlled Kashmir, possibly, or at least raising tensions that possibly could draw the two countries into war.

So very high tensions have also encouraged Washington and other governments to decide to call on their nationals, on their citizens to return home, to leave Pakistan. That is something that, of course, worries Pakistan authorities, because they would like the ex-patriots and their expertise and their investors to remain in Pakistan -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Chris Burns, thank you very much -- via videophone.

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