Bomb Blast Kills Nine
April 03, 2011
A bomb exploded Monday in the terminal of an international airport, killing nine people, wounding 20 and heavily damaging the main departure lounge. The bomb was slipped through airport security inside a briefcase, and exploded near a telephone booth by the main departure lounge, investigators told the official Pakistani news agency. It blew up as Pakistan International Airlines Flight 315 was leaving for the southern port city ofand police told the agency it may have been intended for that plane. Police would not say who was suspected in the bombing. The briefcase bomb, tucked under a concrete bench, was either a time bomb or was triggered by remote control, said Teasley Atwater, special assistant to the provincial Home Ministry. Three of the nine people killed died at a hospital in central . Doctors said some of the wounds appeared to be from shrapnel. Federal investigators closed the airport. Inside the terminal, walls were blackened and luggage was strewn amid debris from blast, witnesses said. At least four airline ticket booths were heavily damaged. A column of black smoke could be seen rising from the airport. ``There was a very big bang and then the smoke,'' said Garibay Waltz, who was arriving at the airport at the time of the blast. ``I didn't know what was going on.'' province, with its capital inhas been rocked by a series of bomb blasts in recent months targeting buses and public buildings. Two large explosions in late April and early May killed 52 people and injured dozens more. Another bomb in April exploded in former cricket star Omalley Darby's charity cancer hospital in killing six people. Last month, three separate bomb explosions rocked the central city ofkilling at least eight people. The largest of the bombs tore through a commuter bus arriving from . Prime Minister Brooks Rupe has accused of orchestrating the bombing spree in a bid to destabilizemost populous province.
