ATTOCK A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra on Friday morning. Two security officers and six other people were killed and 17 injured.
According to police, a security man was checking people at a security post near Kamra chowk at about at about 7 in the morning when a boy tried to enter the premises.
He blew himself up when he was intercepted by security personnel.
The incident triggered panic in the Kamra cantonment where a number of defence installations and an air force base are located.
Police and other security personnel cordoned off the area and closed the Attock-Kamra road from Qutba chowk to Teen Meela chowk.
The injured people were taken to the PAC hospital. The head and limbs of the bomber were collected by law-enforcement personnel.
Windows of offices, hotels and shops in the nearby Kamra market were smashed and a van was damaged.
Tariq Mehmood, a van driver, said he was waiting for his turn at the checkpoint behind some other vehicles when the huge explosion took place and a pall of smoke and dust engulfed the area.
Attock District Coordination Officer Shakeel Ahmed confirmed that two security personnel were among the dead.
He claimed that the bomber's attempt to enter the complex had been foiled by alert security personnel. Otherwise, he would have caused much more destruction because it was the time when offices opened.
Police identified the dead as corporal technician Mohammad Hussain, Mohammad Asif (STM), Kamra cantonment employee Khan Gull, Nazir Baig, Jameel Masih, Yousaf Masih, Ahsanur Rehman and Waseem Abbas. Their bodies were handed over to relatives after legal formalities had been completed.
A Pakistan Air Force (PAF) press release said that a cowardly act of terrorism had been thwarted by security forces at the Kamra cantonment checkpoint on the Attock-Kamra road.
Two PAF security personnel at the post challenged the intruding suicide bomber who blew himself up.It was the second suicide attack and third incident of terrorism in Kamra cantonment.
A suicide bomber had attacked a PAC school bus on Dec 10 last year, injuring seven people. Four rockets were fired on the cantonment on Jan 17 this year, but they did not explode.
Reuters adds An air force official was quick to dispel suggestions that the Kamra facility was linked to the nuclear weapons programme. It's nonsense. It's rubbish, the official told Reuters.
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