Gunmen Kill 4 Americans, 1 Pakistani in Karachi

Four U.S. citizens and a Pakistani were killed early today when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in Karachi, sources said.

Details of the shooting were sketchy, but it is believed that the Americans were auditors who worked for a Houston-based oil company, Union Texas Petroleum. Their identities had not been released.

Authorities in the violence-racked southern port city said a red car came up behind the vehicle in which the Americans were riding. The gunmen fired from behind and later forced the car carrying the five off the road. They then sprayed the vehicle with bullets, police said.

The sources said the slain American workers were apparently en route to their office in the Beharia Complex about half a mile from a downtown hotel where they were staying when the attack occurred. Other details were not immediately known.

U.S. Consulate officials visited the scene but declined to speak to reporters.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings, but they came two days after a Pakistani, 33-year-old Mir Aimal Kasi, was convicted in a U.S. court of murdering two CIA employees in Langley, Va., in 1993.

“It is premature to say why they were killed but there is a strong possibility that it was linked to Kasi’s conviction and sentencing,” said Karchi Police Chief Malik Iqbal.

Prosecutors claim Kasi, who also wounded three people, was out to avenge the bombing of Iraq during the Persian Gulf War and to protest American involvement in Muslim countries.

On Tuesday, the U.S. State Department issued a warning to Americans in the region to watch out for possible retaliation following Monday’s conviction.

In March 1995, two U.S. diplomats in Karachi were slain and a third was wounded when gunmen opened fire on their van as they drove to work.

Today’s attack was the latest in a string of violence that has hit Pakistan’s troubled port and commercial capital in recent months.