theSun | THURSDAY MAY 28 2009
news without borders
Car bomb in Lahore kills 24
LAHORE: A suicide attack flattened a
police building in Pakistan’s city of Lahore
yesterday, killing 24 people in a bomb that
the government branded revenge for an
offensive against the Taliban.
The blast – the third deadly attack to
rock the country’s liberal cultural capital in
as many months – points to a widening net
of Islamist violence which has killed more
than 1,800 people across Pakistan in less
than two years.
Three attackers opened fire and threw
a grenade before a van packed with ex-
plosives blew up outside an emergency
response building beside the provincial
headquarters of Pakistan’s premier intel-
ligence agency, investigators said.
Authorities said more than 300 people
were wounded.
“I heard firing and then a huge blast,”
said one policeman who staggered out of
the rubble, saying that there were 30 to 35
policemen trapped inside.
“The wall collapsed on me. I was trapped
in the wreckage and fell unconscious,” said
an elderly man, speaking to reporters from
his hospital bed.
Russian police find feral girl in Siberia
MOSCOW: Russian police have taken into
care a five-year-old girl who has been shut
up in a flat in the company of cats and dogs
for her entire life, police said yesterday.
The girl, who lived in the Eastern
Siberian city of Chita, could not speak
Russian and acted like an dog when
police took her into care.
“For five years, the girl was ‘brought up’
Rescue workers ferried out the injured
on their backs, stumbling over the debris,
while people tried to dig out bloodied bod-
ies buried deep in rubble.
The blast damaged buildings in the
security nerve centre of Lahore, two
months after a deadly assault on a police
academy near the eastern city claimed by
the Taliban.
“The initial investigation shows that the
attackers first fired at the police and secu-
rity pickets at the corner of the building
and then an explosives-laden Toyota van
blew up,” said Lahore police chief Pervaiz
Rathore.
“The terrorists also threw hand gre-
nades but they could not penetrate the
building,” said Rathore.
A top security official told AFP after
nightfall that 24 people died, including 13
policemen, civilians and security officers.
The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) build-
ing was partly damaged and an intelligence
officer was killed in the blast, one security
official told AFP.
There was no immediate claim of re-
sponsibility but a senior investigator told
by several dogs and cats and had never
been outside,” a police statement said.
“The unwashed girl was dressed in
filthy clothes, had the clear attributes of
an animal and jumped at people.”
The flat had no heat or water.
A police spokeswoman said the girl,
known as Natasha, is being monitored
by psychologists in an orphanage. Her
AFP the attack was the likely handiwork
of Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants operat-
ing from Pakistan’s wild Waziristan, which
borders Afghanistan.
One of the attackers was shot dead
by security guards as he approached the
building, and two others perished in the
explosion, the investigator said.
“Enemies of Pakistan who want to
destabilise the country are coming here
after their defeat in Swat,” Interior Minister
Rehman Malik told reporters, linking the
attack to the military’s offensive against
the Taliban.
“There is a war and this is a war for our
survival,” he added.
President Asif Ali Zardari accused mili-
tants of “trying to create panic among the
people through such acts of barbarism”,
said a spokesman.
Anne Patterson, the US ambassador to
Pakistan, condemned the bombing.
“These attacks serve only to highlight the
vicious and inhuman nature of this enemy
whose true target is the democratically
elected government of Pakistan and the
security of all Pakistanis,” she said. – AFP
mother was being questioned but her
father has not been found yet.
She appears to be about two years
old, though her real age is five, refuses to
eat with a spoon and has taken on many
of the gestures of the animals with which
she lived, police said.
“When carers leave the room, the girl
jumps at the door and barks.” – Reuters
 11
Sri Lanka confident
of avoiding
war crimes probe
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka said yesterday it was confi-
dent of averting an international probe into alleged
war crimes committed during its offensive against
the Tamil Tigers. Human Rights Minister Mahinda
Samarasinghe said the island had managed to lobby
enough backing during a special United Nations
Human Rights Council session to fend off what he
dismissed as little more than empty rhetoric.
“There is no reason for a probe. These are politi-
cal statements made by various people. I don’t think
we should get excited about it,” said Samarasinghe
by telephone from Geneva.
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay on Tuesday
said there was credible evidence that both Sri
Lankan government forces and the defeated Lib-
US offers eration Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) grossly violated
RM9m international humanitarian laws.
for three “An independent and credible international
investigation into recent events should be dis-
Filipino patched to ascertain the occurrence, nature and
terror scale of violations of international human rights and
suspects international humanitarian law, as well as specific
responsibilities,” she said.
pg 12 The Tigers were accused of holding tens of
thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields, while
government troops were alleged to have subjected
rebel-held areas packed with civilians to intense,
indiscriminate shelling. But Samarasinghe said there
was no broad support among council members for
an international investigation.
“The question of not issuing visas for people to
investigate us on war crimes won’t arise,” he said.
“Because the government has a legitimate right to
tackle an internal issue.”
At the council meeting, two draft resolutions
have been put forward – each one at odds in their
approach to the aftermath of the conflict. The Asian-
backed one, which is sponsored by Sri Lanka, com-
mends the government for defeating the LTTE, while
the mainly Western-backed one called on Colombo
to investigate alleged abuses. – AFP