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| Rescuers examine the wreckage of a destroyed vehicle at the blast site in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar on Sept. 3, 2012. Two Americans were among four people killed in a suicide blast that occurred early Monday morning in Peshawar, said a senior local official. (Xinhua/Umar Qayyum) |
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- Two Americans were among four people killed in a suicide blast that occurred early Monday morning in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar, said a senior local official.
Mian Iftikhar, information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province with Peshawar as the provincial capital, told local media that an explosive-laden car rammed into a vehicle carrying employees of the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar near a UNHCR office on the University Road in the city, killing at least four people including two U.S. nationals and the suicide bomber himself and wounding a dozen others including four policemen.
Local media said one of the two Americans killed is identified as a man working as a technical administrator in the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar. Local TV footage even showed the passport picture of the killed man with a bald head.
The identity of the other slain American is not known yet.
The death of two U.S. nationals in the blast is not confirmed by the U.S. embassy yet.
Information Minister Mian Iftikhar did not say what is the identity of the fourth person killed in the blast nor did he mention how many were injured in the attack.
Peshawar city central police official Imtiaz Altaf said that apart from the four policemen injured in the blast, at least 15 others including two kids and a woman were also injured in the attack.
The blast took place at about 9:00 a.m. when one of the two U. S. consulate vehicles, escorted by three local police vehicles, was hit by a suicide car bomb while the convoy was on the way from the U.S. consulate to the American club, said Farhan, a police driver who escorted the convoy.
He said two Americans were sitting inside each of the two consulate vehicles when a four-wheel Landcruiser got hit by the car bomb.
"It was a big blast and a five-feet-deep crater was left on the ground after the explosion", said an eyewitness.
Part of the UNHCR buildings near the blast site was also damaged.
Police, fire fighters and rescue workers rushed to the site shortly after the blast. Bomb disposal squad reportedly found four more bombs near the blast site during the search operation. They said an estimated 100 to 110 kg of explosives were used in the suicide car bomber.
Related:
3 killed, 18 injured as blast hits UN vehicle in NW Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least three people were killed and 18 others including two foreigners and three policemen injured when a blast hit a UN vehicle near the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHR) office in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar on Monday morning, local media reported.
Dunya TV said that the blast took place at about 9:00 a.m. ( local time) when a UN vehicle escorted by police was targeted soon after it left the UNHCR office in University Road area of Peshawar, the provincial capital of the country's northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Full story
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