Bush to proceed to Pakistan, shrugs off deadly bomb blasts

INDIA: US President George W. Bush said he would visit Pakistan despite a bomb blast outside the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi which killed at least one American.

"Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan. My trip to Pakistan is an important trip," Bush told reporters after talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He said one US diplomat had been killed in the blast.

A Pakistani official said the blast was apparently timed to coincide with Bush's visit.

"The bombing that took place prior to my trip is an indication that the war on terror goes on and that free nations must come together to fight terrorism," said Bush, scheduled to leave for Islamabad at the weekend.

The explosion ripped through the car park of the Marriott Hotel next to the US consulate in Karachi's highest security zone, killing the diplomat and at least four others, police and officials said.

The suicide car bomber reportedly rammed into a diplomatic vehicle outside the consulate.

Bush said he would hold talks with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on the need to step up the US-led "war on terror," during his first trip to the country.

He said Musharraf "has a direct stake in this fight" noting that "four times terrorists tried to kill him."

Asked to characterize the threat level for Bush's trip to Islamabad, his National Security Advisor Steve Hadley said, "Pakistan is both an ally in the war on terror and, in some sense, a site where the war is being carried about."

"So there is obviously risks," he said.

Meanwhile two rockets exploded in Karachi on Thursday hours after a US diplomat was one of five people killed in a suicide car bomb attack in Pakistan's southern port city, police said.

"Two rockets fell and exploded in a stream near Gadap area but caused no damage or casualties," local police official Hasan Dal told AFP.

"We do not know immediately what was the target or motive of the attackers," Dal said.

NEW DELHI, Friday - AFP