.:: SAMAA - Twin blasts kill 50 in Lahore cantt area

By Shahid Hussain

LAHORE: At least 50 people including five military personnel have been martyred in twin suicide blasts at bus stop of AR Bazaar in cantonment area of Lahore and more than 120 people have been injured, informed sources in the Rescue department.

The relief work was started soon after the twin sucide blasts. The bodies and injured have been taken to the hospitals of Lahore including Services Hospital , Lahore.

The army officials have cordoned off the area and the helicopter surveillance is also in place. The army has also prevented the media representatives to go near the blast scene.

The police has arrested three suspects from the place of the incident and investigations have been started. The police is in search of the suspected car, Corolla 2412 .

This is the second terrorist attack during this week in Lahore. Earlier, FIA building in Model Town Lahore was targeted in a suicide car bomb blast, killing at least 14 people.

There were two suicide blasts in Lahore and two suicide bombers were on foot when they had exploded themselves, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said while talking to the media in Lahore on Friday.

About 10 to 12 kg explosive material was used in the jackets of suicide bombers.

He said that about 37 to 40 people including 5 military personnel have been martyred in the twin suicide attacks while 80 others have been injured.

He further said that we will fight the terrorists bravely and defeat the terrorists.

He said that the law enforcement agencies are playing its role efficiently and security personnel have made great sacrifices in war against terrorism.

He said that we have taken all important security measures in the province.

DCO LAHORE Sajjad Bhutta told SAMAA that the nature of the blasts cannot be defined yet; however the attacks could have been serious as they had occurred in a usually-crowded area.

CCPO Lahore and Punjab law minister confirmed that the blast was suicidal.

Earlier, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah told SAMAA that the blast did not occur due to security lapse.

Replying to a question, he told SAMAA that it is hard to check an individual. “Such steps of the security forces will paralyze the life.”

An eye-witness, George John, told SAMAA that blasts had occurred near the bus stop where several people were waiting for buses and school children were crossing the roads along with their parents. He said that it was not possible to determine if how many people were there when the blasts had taken place.

An eye witness, a bus driver, told SAMAA that the first blast had occurred at 12:50pm while the second one went off at 12:55pm.

While speaking to the media in Islamabad, Pakistan’s Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that his government is trying to provide the best security arrangements. “Terrorists want to destabilize Punjab. I warn them that they can’t fight with the state.”

He also denied that there was any security lapse in Lahore blasts.

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and the major politicians of the country have condemned the twin suicide attacks.

AGENCIES ADD: Twin suicide attacks seconds apart targeted the Pakistani military Friday, killing up to 45 people in the second attack to hit security forces in the country's cultural capital this week.

The bombers walked up to army vehicles in the crowded R A Bazaar area of Lahore, blowing themselves up as people sat down to eat before the main Muslim weekly prayers were to begin, a senior official said.

Lahore, a city of eight million near Pakistan's border with India, has been increasingly subject to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign that has killed more than 3,000 people in three years.

The bombers targeted the cantonment, home to army officials and military installations, as well as hospitals and schools run by the military. There were civilian homes, shops and restaurants in the vicinity of the attack.

Footage of the blasts broadcast by private Geo TV showed people running and shouting in panic. One man, who apparently shot the video on a mobile phone, is heard murmuring: "Oh my God, Oh my God, Be kind to us God."

Jumpy images of the second explosion showed a thick ball of smoke with a huge bang and people shouting.

Mohammad Nadeem, a man in his 20s whose traditional white shalwar khamis was stained with blood down the front, told AFP he was saying prayers in the mosque when he heard the first blast and rushed out only to hear another explosion.

"The second blast took place very near a military vehicle. I sensed real danger and started running," he said.

"There were scenes of destruction in nearby restaurants and shops. There were broken chairs and tables and other items lying everywhere on the ground."

The army sealed off the tree-lined street. Security officials said at least five soldiers were among those killed when the twin blasts shattered windows and sent debris flying from nearby buildings.

"Forty-three people were killed and 134 wounded in the attacks," Lahore civil defence department chief Mazhar Ahmad told AFP.

But a senior security official put the death toll at 45 and said six army personnel were among the dead.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Pakistan's Taliban claimed a suicide attack Monday that destroyed offices in Lahore used to interrogate militant suspects, killing 15 people, and pledged further attacks.

Violence in Pakistan is concentrated largely in the lawless northwest border area with Afghanistan, but analysts have warned that extremism is taking a hold in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous and politically important province.

Eight attacks have killed more than 170 people in Lahore over the past year, a historical city, playground for the elite and home to many top brass in Pakistan's powerful military and intelligence establishment.

"We have the heads of both the bombers. There was an interval of 15 seconds between the two attacks. They were on foot. Their target was army vehicles," added police official Chaudhry Mohammad Shafiq.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is on the frontline of the US war on Al-Qaeda, under pressure to act against Islamist militants in the border area with Afghanistan -- which Washington calls the most dangerous place on Earth.

The first two months of this year saw a decline in violence by militants in Pakistan after a significant increase in bloodshed in late 2009.

Officials linked the reduction to the suspected death -- still not confirmed -- of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and military offensives that have disrupted militant networks.

Pakistan's military claims to have made big gains against Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds over the past year, following major offensives in the northwestern district of Swat and the tribal region of South Waziristan.

Washington says militants in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt are fuelling the war in Afghanistan, where more than 120,000 NATO and US troops are spearheading a last-ditch strategy to defeat a nine-year Taliban insurgency.

Despite a series of reported arrests in Pakistan in recent weeks, scepticism remains on whether its powerful spy agency has made a decisive break with Islamist hardliners after well-established historical ties.

Pakistan has confirmed only the arrest of Mullah Adbul Ghani Baradar, described by US officials as the Afghan Taliban number two, but also reported to have been in contact with Afghan government officials.

WHY IS LAHORE IMPORTANT?

Lahore is capital of Punjab, Pakistan's most populous and prosperous province, and has a population of more than 5 million.

Lahore is also regarded as the heart of the country's powerful ruling establishment because traditionally it is home to the country's top bureaucrats and military top brass.

The country's second-biggest city, with Mughal-era ruins and elegant, British colonial-era architecture, Lahore is also known as Pakistan's cultural centre.

Punjab is Pakistan's main agricultural province and home to much of its industry.

HISTORY OF VIOLENCE IN LAHORE

Lahore had been generally free of militant violence over the years after 2001, when Pakistan joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy and violence began increasing.

However, over the past couple of years, violence has been increasing in the city.

* Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Sri Lanka's national cricket team outside a Lahore stadium in March 2009, killing seven Pakistanis and wounding six Sri Lankan cricketers and a British coach.

* That same month, militants stormed a police training centre in the city killing eight recruits, wounding scores and holding off police and troops for eight hours.

* Twenty-four people were killed in car-bomb attack at police headquarters in the city in May last year.

* Forty-nine people were killed in an attack in a crowded market in the city in December.

* Thirteen people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a police intelligence building in Lahore on Monday.

* Lahore is also home to the headquarters of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a major militant group fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. While the LeT has not launched attacks in Pakistan, India accused it of being behind the November 2008 attack in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people.

POLITICS OF LAHORE

* Punjab province returns 183 members of the 342-seat National Assembly and, as such, the provincial capital is considered the country's political nerve-centre although the seat of government is Islamabad, 260 km (160 miles) to the northwest.

* Lahore is the home city and a stronghold of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The party of President Asif Ali Zardari also has considerable support in the city.

* The two parties are in an uneasy coalition in the Punjab provincial government, although they oppose each other at the federal level and will go head-to-head in the next general election, due in 2013. SAMAA/AGENCIES