Two bombs ripped through a pro-Taliban Islamic school in this southern Pakistani city Sunday, killing six and injuring 14 in the latest in a string of violence to grip the port city.
The blasts went off near a restaurant close to Jamia Islamia Binori Town, a Sunni Muslim school where thousands study, said Fayyaz Leghari, a senior Karachi police official.
Syed Mazhar, a doctor at nearby Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, said six people died, and 14 others were injured. Three of the injured were listed in serious condition.
A spokesman for the seminary, Ghulam Rabbani, said there were two explosions, the first of which was apparently designed to draw people in.
“The first one was smaller. When people got to the site there was another explosion,” he said.
The school has had problems with sectarian violence in the past.
In May, assailants fatally shot the school’s leader, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, in a drive-by attack. Shamzai was a prominent supporter of Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban regime. Thousands of his supporters rioted following his death.
Police and paramilitary troops blocked off streets around the school following Sunday’s attack. There was no claim of responsibility.
Karachi is Pakistan’s main port city and commercial center and is believed to be a hide out for Islamic militants, some with suspected links to al-Qaida.
The city has been the scene in recent months of bomb explosions and attacks targeting security forces and Westerners, including an assassination attempt against a senior general in June. The general survived, but 10 other people died.
Much of the violence in the city of about 14 million people is blamed on Islamic hard-liners who are angered by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s decision to ally with the U.S.-led war campaign against terrorism.
On July 31, a bomb exploded outside a car dealership in Karachi, leaving two people dead.
That explosion occurred in part of the city where Pakistani police had arrested al-Qaida operative Ramzi Binalshibh after a shootout in September 2002.