LAHORE, March 11, 2008 - Two blasts have killed at least 20 and injured almost 100 people in Lahore on Tuesday. One explosion which partially demolished the office of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the city killed at least 15 people. The Director FIA, Chaudhry Manzoor has confirmed the death of 10 FIA employees as a result of the blast. The blast occurred at around 9.30 am near the FIA office. Another near-simultaneous bomb blast occurred at an advertising agency in another part of Lahore killed another four people. According to reports, at least two children have been feared dead in the blasts.

Mirza Mohammed Yasin, an FIA official in the capital, Islamabad, said the police building was devastated by a bomb planted inside near an elevator. At least a dozen people died, said Mohammed Afzal, a Lahore police official. Three more died in a second bombing at a house in the Model Town residential area, Afzal said.

The façade of the of the seven-story police building has been badly damaged, with piles of bricks scattered across an intersection. Flames shot up from part of debris. Glass from storefront windows and car windshields littered the street, where fire-fighters sprayed hoses over charred wreckage of mangled cars, one of them crushed by a downed tree.  A Police official Asmal Gondal, said that two suicide bombers drove a pickup truck up to the house and detonated their explosives. Two children of a gardener who worked there were killed, the report said.

This attack is the first act of terrorism since the two major political parties, PML-N and PPP announced Sunday that they would form a coalition government after routing the allies of President Pervez Musharraf in the elections last month. - Agencies