Pakistan/India: Pakistan's military test-fired a short-range ballistic missile yesterday, which it said was capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but arch-rival India considered the test "nothing special".
The Pakistani military named the rocket as the "indigenously developed" surface-to-surface ballistic missile Hatf-III Ghaznavi.
"This was the second test of the Ghaznavi missile which is capable of carrying all types of warheads accurately up to a range of 290 km," it said in a statement.
Pakistan said the timing of the test, the first in a series planned for the next few days, was based on the country's own missile defence needs and had nothing to do with developments in the region.
"The timings of the tests reflect Pakistan's determination not to engage in a tit-for-tat syndrome to other tests in the region," the military said.
"Pakistan will maintain the pace of its own missile development programme and conducts tests as per its technical needs." Tension with nuclear-armed rival India has eased somewhat this year after the two countries moved close to war in 2002. Progress towards peace talks has been stymied, partly because of renewed violence in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.
India dismissed the test as nothing new. "There is nothing special about it," Defence Minister Mr George Fernandes told the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
Meanwhile, gunmen attacked a bus carrying Shi'ite Muslim worshippers in the Pakistani port city of Karachi yesterday, killing six people and wounding eight, police said.
Two or three gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire with automatic weapons on a government bus carrying the worshippers to Friday prayers, Tariq Jameel, a deputy inspector general of police, said.
Doctors said five people died on the spot and a sixth died later in hospital. "We have launched investigations," Mr Jameel said. "But it is too early to say who is responsible." No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but police blame Sunni Muslim militants for most of the sectarian blood-letting in Pakistan.