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American Morning

Deaths at 11 in Pakistan Bombing

Aired June 14, 2002 - 09:01   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are going to move on now to our "Up Front" this morning, and that is a suicide bomb attack in front of the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. We now know that 11 people were killed; at least 40 were injured.

Joining us now from Karachi is our own correspondent, Chris Burns.

Chris, what have you learned? Good morning.

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Well, among the injured are the only six people that were in the consulate at the time: five locals and one Marine guard. All six of them are among the injured. They are lightly injured, I must say. But they're among the 45 people injured in addition to the reported eight to 11 killed in this car bombing that happened just before noon today.

The car packed with explosives. The suicide bomber rammed it right into a guard post outside of the consulate in downtown Karachi. The consulate looks very much like a bunker, and perhaps that's what prevented any further harm to those six people inside.

In any case, it has killed as many as 11 people at this point. It destroyed a boundary wall along the consulate; destroyed several cars; shattered windows in the consulate and in various building around, including the Marriott hotel.

Suspicion is that it was Islamic militants that did this. And this isn't the first -- the first kind of attack of this kind. There was a bombing in May just last month in Karachi. A car bomb that destroyed a bus full of French workers on a submarine project, killed 11 French people and three Pakistanis.

Earlier this year, of course, U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and killed. That trial is going on. Back in March, there was a grenade attack on a church in Islamabad, killing five, including two Americans. All this violence going on also as President Perves Musharraf of Pakistan is cracking down or trying to crack down on these militants.

Along with this crackdown was, of course, the arrest of Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomb plotter -- alleged dirty bomb plotter. And just two days ago in Karachi, officials here say that they arrested five people linked to Jose Padilla.

So again, this crackdown continuing all around, and this terror attack appears, perhaps, to be linked to the crackdown by Musharraf -- Paula.

ZAHN: Chris Burns, thank you very much for that update. We will be going back to you as soon as more information becomes available.

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