Twin suicide attacks kill 25 in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: Two suicide car bombings killed at least 25 people in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday, posing a fresh challenge to the US-allied country's incoming civilian government.

The deadliest blast demolished much of the federal police headquarters in the heart of the eastern city, while the other hit an advertising office several kilometres (miles) away. Two children were among the dead.

Shortly after the attacks the Australian cricket team said they were cancelling an upcoming tour to Pakistan, due to security fears caused by a wave of violence across the country that has killed more than 600 people this year.

Rescue workers in orange jackets frantically clawed through the debris at the site of the blast at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which deals mainly with immigration and people smuggling, an AFP reporter said.

"It was a suicide attack on the FIA office and it was the target," Lahore police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal told AFP, adding that at least 21 people were killed in the bombing and more than 100 wounded.

Lawyer Wali Mohammed Khan, who was on the second floor of the building when the explosion happened, said the blast was "so intense that I was literally blown off my chair."

"There was blood everywhere. I also saw mutilated limbs and body parts scattered around the reception area of the building," Khan told AFP.

FIA chief Tariq Pervaz said paramedics were "trying to rescue survivors from under the rubble." FIA sources said that at least 10 employees were among the dead. The building also housed the offices of a US-trained special investigation unit created to counter terrorism, which was possibly the intended target, security officials said.

Pools of blood and small pieces of human flesh lay scattered on the ground outside the eight-storey building, along with clothes and pairs of shoes that were abandoned by people as they ran away.

The second near-simultaneous blast was also caused by a suicide car bomb and hit an advertising agency in an upscale neighbourhood of the city, killing another four people, including two children, police said. Lahore, Tuesday, AFP