Pakistani general survives ambush

KARACHI, Pakistan - Attackers with assault rifles and bombs ambushed the motorcade of Karachi's top general Thursday, killing 10 people but missing their prime target in the latest terrorist assault in Pakistan's volatile commercial capital.

Lt. Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hayat, his uniform spattered with blood, arrived safely at his office and was "perfectly all right," army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told the Associated Press.

Militants hiding behind walls on both sides of a main road peppered Hayat's convoy with gunfire in the well-orchestrated attack, witnesses said. Six soldiers, three policemen and a bystander were killed, and at least 10 people were wounded, including Hayat's driver and a guard.

More were saved by a police officer who hurled a bomb left at the roadside into a vacant lot, where it exploded. Another bomb found nearby, loaded with 11 pounds of explosives and rigged to a mobile phone, was defused.

Hayat "was the target and he escaped the assassination attempt," Sultan said.

The attackers came under fire from soldiers in the convoy and fled, apparently in a Toyota van that was found abandoned in another part of Karachi, pocked with bullet holes and stained with blood on the inside.

Investigators identified no suspects and no group claimed responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on Islamic extremists, angered by Pakistan's efforts in support of the U.S.-led war on terror.

On Wednesday, Pakistani forces clashed with suspected al-Qaida fighters near the Afghan border, leaving 20 or more people dead, most of them militants - the latest salvo in a long-running struggle to free Pakistan's lawless tribal areas of terrorist suspects from Afghanistan.

The attack in Karachi, which initial investigations indicated involvement of a dozen or more people, follows at least three unsolved bombings in the city of 14-million people in the past month that triggered deadly riots by Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites.

"People are losing their sense of security because even the president to corps commander are under attack, mosques and (Shiite mosques) are being bombed and no one is safe," said Abdul Razzak, 45, a betel nut vendor.

Since May 7, there have been suicide bombings on two Shiite mosques that have killed more than 40 people, the drive-by shooting of a top Sunni cleric, and a twin car bombing near the U.S. consul-general's residence - near the scene of Thursday's assault - that killed a police officer and injured 40 other people.

Some officials have speculated the attacks are part of an al-Qaida plot to provoke discord in Karachi - a city riven along ethnic, religious and political lines. Until May, it had enjoyed a year of relative calm, amid a recovering economy.

Sindh province chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who took office Monday after his predecessor resigned over the security crisis, said the attacks were part of a wave of violence against Pakistan as it played a major role in the war on terrorism.

The attempt on Hayat's life follows two failed assassination attempts in December against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf, a key U.S. ally, blamed al-Qaida for those bombings. A number of renegade military personnel have also been implicated.

Sultan, however, rejected the possibility that the military could have been behind the attack on Hayat, who was traveling his usual motorcade route between his residence and his headquarters that crosses Karachi's Clifton Bridge, about 500 yards from the U.S. Consulate.

In April 2002, Musharraf also escaped an assassination plot in Karachi when a car packed with explosives on his motorcade route failed to detonate. An Islamic extremist group, Harakat-ul Mujahedeen al-Almi, was blamed for that attempt.

After Thursday's attack, Pakistan put airports in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore on high alert, following a "hijacking threat." Officials declined to say who had issued the threat.

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