ISLAMABAD – A suicide bomber dressed as a paramilitary soldier attacked an office of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in the Pakistani capital yesterday, killing five staff, government and UN officials said.
The suicide bomber was disguised as a paramilitary soldier and got into the WFP compound after asking a guard at the gate if he could use a toilet, a Pakistani government minister said.
A WFP spokesman said five members of staff had been killed, four Pakistanis and an Iraqi. Two of the Pakistanis were women.
“I went to my office on the first floor and as I sat on my chair there was a huge blast,” WFP official Arshad Jadoon said outside the tightly guarded office in a residential area of Islamabad.
“All of a sudden, a smoke cloud enveloped the building and we came out where wounded people were lying.”
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said the attack was a heinous crime. “This is a terrible tragedy for the UN and for the whole humanitarian community in Pakistan,” he said in a statement condemning the bombing “in the strongest terms”.
The UN temporarily closed its office in Pakistan after the blast for security reasons, a UN spokeswoman said yesterday.
Two foreign UN workers were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on a hotel in the northwestern city of Peshawar in June.
Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik had been saying the back of the Pakistani Taliban has been broken. But the militants have struck back with several bombs in recent days as the army prepares to launch an offensive on their main bastion in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border.
New Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud met a small group of journalists in South Waziristan on Sunday to dismiss speculation of infighting over leadership of the alliance of 13 factions.
Pakistani and US officials had said they believed Hakimullah might have been killed in a firefight with a rival faction led by commander Wali-ur-Rehman in a dispute about who should take over from their former leader, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US missile attack in August.
Mr Malik repeated his assertion that the back of the Pakistani Taliban had been broken but he warned of more attacks. “In coming days, two or three suicide bombings are expected,” he said. – (Reuters)