My World Earth: Six suspected militants killed in Karachi blast- Hideout explosion accidently exploded .

Friday, January 8, 2010

Six suspected militants killed in Karachi blast- Hideout explosion accidently exploded .

Six suspected militants were killed on Friday in hideout,believe accidentally explosion.

Volunteers remove a body from the rubble of a collapsed house in Karachi, Pakistan, following Friday's explosion

Six suspected militants were killed on Friday when explosives being stored in a hideout in the Pakistani city of Karachi were apparently detonated accidentally, police said.

Karachi has been largely been free of militant violence over the past couple of years, but a bomb at a procession by minority Shi'ite Muslims in the city last week fueled concerns that the militants are expanding their fight to Pakistan's commercial hub.

Friday's blast, in a poor neighborhood of the sprawling southern city, is likely to add to those fears.

"It looks like the people inside the house were some militants," said area police official Ghulam Hussain Korai.

Six people were killed in the blast, which brought down the house, and weapons were found in the rubble, Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed told Reuters.

"Police have recovered one Kalashnikov rifle and two hand grenades," Ahmed told Reuters. "We have also taken into custody two suspects who were injured in the blast."

Karachi is home to Pakistan's main stock market, the central bank and its two main ports.

As the country's industrial hub, the city generates 68 percent of government revenue and 25 percent of gross domestic product.

While investors in Pakistan have got used to almost daily violence in the northwest, near the Afghan border, bloodshed in Karachi is more likely to dent sentiment.

akistan's interior minister, citing police evidence gathered after a deadly house bombing Friday, said people at the dwelling had been planning to attack him during a court appearance in Karachi.

Rehman Malik, who appeared in a Karachi court regarding an outstanding corruption case against him, said intelligence officers warned him against going to pre-announced events such as Friday's court appearance, which was well-publicized a few weeks ago.

The house blast occurred in the Baldia section of Karachi and killed seven people. When police came to the scene, they interrogated three survivors, two men and an elderly woman. They then determined the people were intent on launching an attack on the court, according to Waseed Ahmed, Karachi's police chief.

Ahmed said officers also discovered two suicide vests, 25 hand grenades, three AK-47s and 17 magazines of ammunitions. Police also found tins of food, which led them to believe the attackers might have been planning to take hostages and set up a siege of the court.

Police were investigating the cause of the blast, and Malik said people in the house were members of a family from the Swat Valley in North West Frontier Province. The Pakistani army has conducted intense operations in that province and the tribal region to rout militants from their safe havens.

Malik had been among thousands of bureaucrats and politicians who had been granted amnesty by Pakistan's National Reconciliation Ordinance. The ordinance shielded them from having to face corruption charges. But the ordinance has been nullified, and Malik was no longer protected by it.

Also Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed five people in northwestern Pakistan, two intelligence sources said.

The suspected drone launched two missiles at a car in the village of Palali, in North Waziristan, a rugged area near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan that is rife with Islamic extremists, the sources said.

Two of the dead were from countries other than Pakistan; three were locals, the sources told CNN.

The attack, at about 7:45 p.m. also injured two people, the two intelligence sources said.

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