By AFZAL NADEEN, Associated Press
Writer
KARACHI, Pakistan - A powerful car bomb
exploded outside the front entrance to a KFC
restaurant in the southern Pakistan city of
Karachi early Tuesday, killing at least three
people and injuring 12 others, police said.
The blast, which went off about 8:45 a.m.,
badly damaged the restaurant, part of the global
American fast food chain, burning several cars
along the street in front.
Mushtaq Shah, Karachi's police chief, told
reporters the bomb was concealed in a car parked
outside the restaurant.
Another police official, Sanaullah Abbasi,
said three people were killed in the blast and
12 injured.
The bomb struck as commuters were heading to
offices and shops in the crowded business hub.
Hundreds of people gathered at the site near the
Pearl Intercontinental Hotel that is popular
with foreign tourists and business people.
"I can see that the KFC building is
burning, six cars have caught fire and injured
people are lying on the road," said Saeed
Mohammad, a traffic police official who rushed
to the scene after hearing the blast.
Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is a hotbed
of Muslim militancy and previous bombings in the
city have been linked to Islamic extremists
opposed to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf's close ties to the United States.
Pakistan has been a key ally in the struggle
against Muslim extremists tied to al-Qaida and
Afghanistan's
former Taliban regime.
Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh
Rashid Ahmed, condemned the blast, calling it
the work of the "enemies of Pakistan."
The restaurant occupies the ground floor of a
government office building housing the Pakistan
Industrial Development Corporation. Firefighters
prevented the blaze from spreading to other
parts of the building.
Two bodies were pulled from the KFC
restaurant while another man lay dead at the
restaurant's entrance, eyewitnesses said. The
injured included security guards at the building
and nearby banks.
It was the second attack on Western fast food
restaurants in Karachi in recent months. Bombs
struck KFC and McDonalds restaurants in Karachi
in September, injuring three people in attacks
suspected of being linked to a nationwide strike
called by a hardline Islamic coalition opposed
to Musharraf.
A KFC restaurant in Karachi was also burned
in May, killing six workers inside during an
outbreak of religious violence between Sunni and
Shiite Muslim groups in the city.
