PAKISTAN:AT LEAST nine people were killed and up to 20 injured in a suicide bomb attack outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad yesterday, prompting fresh concern over the safety of western citizens in Pakistan.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, although senior Pakistani intelligence officials said it had probably been carried out by Islamic militants seeking revenge for the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers in 2005.
The cartoons provoked violent anti-Danish demonstrations in a number of countries. The embassy in Islamabad shut down in 2006 after protests in Pakistan.
Yesterday's blast shook Islamabad's central area, which is home to a number of affluent business people and diplomats.
Residents of the area warned of further attacks unless western diplomats moved to the city's relatively secure diplomatic enclave.
"Plenty of people in Pakistan are opposed to the West. We don't like [US president] George Bush and we don't like those who attack our religion," said Ayesha Usman, a college student.
"The security of these [western] diplomats cannot be guaranteed unless their governments stop attacking Muslims."
Danish foreign minister Per Stig Moller condemned the attack and recommended that Danes did not travel to Pakistan.
He said that a Pakistani man who worked at the embassy as a cleaner had been killed and three other local employees had been injured. No Danes died in the attack.
"It's terrible that terrorists commit such acts," he said on a Danish television channel. "We already were working under a higher security level in Pakistan."
Salman Bashir, Pakistan's foreign secretary, the second-highest-ranking official after the foreign minister, visited the scene and condemned the "unwanted and ruthless act of violence".
Security conditions across Pakistan have deteriorated since a stand-off at the beginning of last year between the regime of Pervez Musharraf, the president, and Islamic clerics from the Red Mosque in the centre of Islamabad. That impasse ended in bloodshed when commandos stormed the mosque, killing a number of militants who were holding out there.
Among the dead was Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy chief cleric, who had demanded the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in the capital.
Militants have, since early last year, stepped up suicide and other attacks, targeting Pakistani troops deployed in the border region with Afghanistan.
The decision by the recently-elected government - consisting of parties opposed to Mr Musharraf - to negotiate peace deals with militants in the border region has been opposed by western countries, including the US.
Western diplomats believe that such accords will only harden the militants' resolve to impose Sharia law across Pakistan.
Financial Times service