Posted on 03/17/2002 7:08:57 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
An American woman and her daughter were among five people killed when an attacker tossed grenades inside a Protestant church during a Sunday service in the diplomatic quarter of the Pakistani capital.
There was no claim of responsibility but suspicion fell on hard-line Islamic groups opposed to President Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
"I saw a fellow throwing some grenades," said an elderly German woman wearing a white scarf flecked with blood who gave her name as Jutta. "I got down. Praise God I was spared but others were seriously injured. It was havoc."
The 60 to 70 people at the Protestant International Church, a popular place of worship for foreigners in Islamabad, had sung some hymns and were listening to the sermon.
The spiritual calm was shattered by a blast at the back of the hall and one man rushed up the aisle brandishing grenades and shouting, witnesses said.
Worshippers dived for cover as five or six explosions ripped through the church, filling it with smoke and splattering the walls and ceiling with blood.
A government statement said a lone attacker was responsible for killing the five churchgoers -- two Americans, one Pakistani, one Afghan and an unidentified person -- and wounding 42.
Police had earlier said there were two attackers but were not yet sure whether the attacker or attackers had escaped or were among the dead.
The death toll could rise as the government said six or seven people were gravely wounded.
WOUNDED FROM MANY NATIONS
Security was tightened in Islamabad and in other parts of Pakistan, including the port city of Karachi where kidnapped U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered last month.
Police sealed off the roads around the diplomatic enclave after the attack. An army truck, mounted with a machinegun, moved into place between the church and the nearby U.S. embassy.
Musharraf -- who has banned seven militant groups and ordered the detention of hundreds of activists since September 11 -- called the attack a "ghastly act of terrorism," according to the state news agency.
Pakistan's Health Minister Abdul Malik Kasi said the dead Americans were a woman and her daughter aged about 17, adding the husband was being treated for leg wounds. U.S. officials declined to identify them.
A doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences said the fifth body was in pieces.
"Apparently it is of a foreigner and male," he said.
Islamabad police chief Nasir Durrani said the wounded included 12 Pakistanis, 10 Americans, five Iranians, two Sri Lankans, one Iraqi, one Ethiopian and a German.
The government statement later said citizens of Britain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland and Afghanistan had also been hurt.
Wendy Chamberlin, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, visited the Federal Government Services Hospital to view the bodies of the dead Americans and console the wounded.
"It's a tragedy," she said as she emerged, grim-faced. Asked about a motive, she said simply: "Terrorism."
She was due to hold a news conference at 1400 GMT.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement he was "deeply shocked" and was keeping in close contact with the country's diplomats in Islamabad.
HIT THE DECK
Nick Parham, a Briton who works for the Tearfund aid agency, told Reuters he saw the attacker at close range shortly after the first blast.
"One chap came down the aisle a couple of feet away from me. He had a belt on with a whole load of what looked like British army smoke grenades or home-made grenades," Parham said.
"He had one in his hand. At that point I hit the deck. There were five or six more explosions."
Parham was taken to hospital with six other people in an army truck. A young woman with severe wounds died shortly after arriving at hospital, he said.
Armed guards are ubiquitous outside diplomatic missions, aid agencies, hotels and many residences in the capital but there were reports that only one security man was keeping watch over the church's three doors.
Law minister Khalid Ranjha said the attack was "certainly a message" and may have been carried out "to spoil our relations with our foreign friends."
A senior police official in Karachi told Reuters officers and paramilitary rangers had moved into position around churches and areas with religious minorities.
Sunday's attack follows the killing of 15 worshippers and a police guard at St. Dominic's church in the city of Bahawalpur in October, the worst assault on Pakistan's small Christian minority since independence from Britain in 1947.
Largely Muslim Pakistan has suffered a surge in violence between Sunni and Shi'ite militants but attacks on Christians and other minorities are relatively rare.
Christians, Hindus and other religions make up about three percent of Pakistan's 140 million people.
I can hardly wait until Islam is numerous enough in America to start showing its peace and toleration over here...Funny how you have been hit by a miniscule community of infiltrators who have been unable to recruit from your sizable Muslim community which numbers one in every 50 Americans? You are falling for the manipulative tactics of church bombing assholes to have this decay into a religious conflict vs one between right and wrong or good and evil.
One in every person in America is Muslim ? I would respectfully have to see some proof of that.I was under the impression that there were five million Muslims in the US (one in every 50). You've gotto figure, thought, that there are many more Muslims inthe US than those non-americans who perpetrated the acts to date. I can't see the demographic correlation in your initial comment.
You'll have to excuse my predjuices as a former soldier I find it hard to embrace something that is killing American troops.It's not Islam that's killing American, Turkish, Israeli, etc. troops. It's militants with varied ambitions, centering around control over land, populations, and trade.
Maybe I missed something but I haven't seen an outcry in the religious meeting of the people of Islam in this country. In fact to the contrary there seems to be considerable support for the terrorists within the Muslims living or going to school in America.I can't agree with you on that, I know there have been Muslim priests (imams) who have denounced the carnage (9-11 and other) but thereby have only succeeded in exposing themselves to reverse terror by outraged non-Muslims..
Am I wrong ? I will admit I don't know any Muslims being here in Texas. Except the Black Mulsims, and their just "klan with a tan".I counted the Black Muslims in my earlier comment.
Perhaps it is being said and not reported in our media but we do not hear American Muslims say that.
But, at certain times, those who call themselves one thing commit crimes which put everyone else in the group in a bad light. Human nature to profile when this occurs.But eventually things will settle down. The crazies will be purged, the good will prevail. There are very few groups which have not been through this.
I wish there were a key to solve the problems facing the Muslim world. I would hand the key to Turkey.
It is the height of naivete to think these haters and bigots are in any way merely lacking in understanding.I understand your point, but must counter that it may be the height of pessimism to assume that all those outraged prefer ignorance over knowledge... I for one will not give up on my fellow human being, even if am rejected by some.
"Attacks on Christians are relatively rare."
This is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, and the government itself is about to execute the headmaster of a Christian school for hinting to four students that Muhammad may not have been a true prophet.
I think this ought to be added to the Axis of Evil, and I think Karachi should be nuked for the death of Daniel Pearl, and I think Islamabad ought to be nuked for this, and the site renamed as "Christianagood."
I wish there were a key to solve the problems facing the Muslim world.I believe the key may have something to do with employment. People working full time have no time to mess around the caves of Tora-Bora.. Another part of the solution may lie in communication. If these people knew you, and not the image of you projected for them by folks like Usame, then they may defend you instead of blaming you for their ills. That brings up the point of education..
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