Pakistani navy bus hit in Karachi

Five dead in Karachi blast, two days after four people were killed in similar attacks on navy buses in the same city. Last Modified: 28 Apr 2011 06:46

The bus was ferrying naval officials to work when the explosion occurred [AFP] A blast has hit a bus carrying Pakistani navy officials in the southern city of Karachi, killing five people, officials have said. "Now a total of four of our employees - all sailors - have been martyred in the attack on our bus while seven others are injured," navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali told AFP. A hospital official said a passerby was also killed. Karachi is Pakistan's commercial hub and also home to the main base of the navy. Thursday's blast occurred two days after two other navy buses were attacked in the city. Four people were killed in those blasts and 56 others wounded. Both the Baluchistan Liberation Army and the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks, which police said were carried out with remotely controlled bombs roughly 15 minutes apart i different areas of the city. Experts say the navy may have been targeted because it is seen as less well-defended than the army and the air force which are leading the fight against the Taliban. The Taliban vowed to continue attacks on the country's military until it stops targeting the group in the country's northwest. Zafar Hilaly, defence and foreign affairs analyst, laid the blame for the attacks squarely at the door of groups like the Pakistani Taliban. "The killings are clearly the result of militant action. There are a lot of them in Karachi ... indeed Karachi is regarded as a haven for them," he told Al Jazeera. "They come down from the frontier to recoup, plan ... and then they go back." Analysts say that the attacks may be part of a wider campaign to hit security forces across the country. "It appears to be part of the same militant campaign but I don't see any logic in targeting the navy because, unlike the army and air force, they are not involved in any operations against the militants," Tasneem Noorani, a security analyst and former interior secretary, said. "They may have targeted navy out of desperation because the other forces [air force and army] may have become very careful and are difficult to attack." The attacks this week on the military in Karachi were the first since 2004 when assailants ambushed a convoy escorting the Karachi army corps commander. The general escaped that attack. In 2002, 11 French engineers and technicians working on the construction of submarines for the Pakistani navy were killed, along with three Pakistanis in a suicide car bombing outside a hotel in Karachi.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies