KARACHI: A Saudi diplomat was killed in a hail of bullets on his way to the country's consulate in Karachi on Monday, the second attack on Saudi interests in Pakistan's biggest city in less than a week.
Pakistan’s al Qaeda-linked Taliban said on Monday they killed a Saudi Arabian diplomat in Karachi.
“We take responsibility,” a Taliban spokesman said by telephone from an undisclosed location, referring to the killing of the diplomat earlier in the day.
“Until America stops chasing al Qaeda and stops drone strikes we will keep carrying out such attacks,” he said, referring to US attacks with pilotless aircraft on militants in northwest Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia said Hasan al-Khatani had been on his way to work at the consulate and demanded that Pakistan tighten security measures for its diplomats, following a grenade attack on the mission building last week.
Police said Khatani worked in the consulate's security department and was driving a vehicle with diplomatic plates when two motorcycle riders unleashed a stream of gunfire at a crossroads in the city's upmarket Defence neighbourhood.
Karachi city police chief Iqbal Mahmood said militants fired four rounds, killing him at the scene, and fled on their motorcycle.
“They came on a motorbike, they fired four shots. One bullet hit his head and he died on the spot,” he told reporters.
“We are investigating whether the assailants were provided any cover by a car in the area,” he added.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who Monday held talks with US Senator John Kerry designed to repair ties damaged by the unilateral American raid that killed bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad, condemned the attack.
“We are investigating if it was linked to the Abbottabad operation or was an isolated incident,” said provincial home ministry official Sharfuddin Memon, calling the dead man a junior officer at the consulate.
A six-member police and intelligence team would investigate both attacks on the Saudi mission, whether they are connected and who was responsible, he said.
Last Wednesday, assailants on a motorbike threw two grenades at the consulate in what officials said could have been reaction to bin Laden's death.
The Pakistani Taliban, blamed for some of the worst acts of violence in the country, last Friday claimed a double suicide bombing that killed 89 people outside a police training centre as their first revenge for bin Laden.
Karachi has been awash with political violence and sectarian killings.
“Apart from a possible reaction by militants to bin Laden's killing, we also suspect a sectarian link,” one senior security official told AFP.
Saudi Arabia condemned the attack as “criminal” and called on Pakistan to tighten security measures around the consulate in Karachi and the Islamabad embassy, a foreign ministry official was quoted as saying by state media.
Last week, Saudi Arabia condemned the grenade assault as a “terror attack”, saying it had “full confidence” in Pakistan's ability to bring the assailants to justice and provide the necessary protection to the Saudi mission.
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