Pakistan on High Alert After Blast

President Pervez Musharraf ordered security forces on maximum alert Wednesday and said a suicide car bombing that killed 11 French workers and two of his citizens was an act of international terrorism.

An Interior Ministry official blamed the attack, which took place here Wednesday morning, on “external elements,” saying they could be either members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist organization or agents of Pakistan’s archrival, India.

“This act of international terrorism has to be met with full force,” Musharraf said on state television. “My government has the complete resolve for meeting this threat.”

The Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Musharraf had called an emergency national security meeting in the capital, Islamabad. The military ruler ordered security along the border with Afghanistan further strengthened to stanch the flow of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing U.S.-led coalition forces.

Although authorities blamed external forces, many Islamic militants inside Pakistan have close links to Al Qaeda. They have vowed revenge for Musharraf’s ban on five militant groups earlier this year after he sided with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign and war in Afghanistan.

The car bombing injured dozens and blew a hole 10 feet deep in the pavement outside the Sheraton hotel. Police said 23 people were hospitalized, 12 of them French.

The French victims were engineers from France’s state-owned naval construction service building a submarine purchased by Pakistan.

French President Jacques Chirac condemned the attack as “odious” and dispatched his newly appointed defense minister to Pakistan.

In a phone call, Chirac urged Musharraf to take necessary measures to protect the French community and to “put everything in place to find and punish the authors of this terrorist attack.”

Musharraf invited French authorities to assist in the investigation, Pakistan’s state news agency reported. The Interior Ministry official said that the Pakistani leader had also asked anti-terrorism experts from the United States and Japan to join the inquiry.

Witnesses said the French workers were sitting in a shuttle bus waiting to be taken to the Arabian Sea port when the bomber pulled alongside. Seconds later, a thunderous explosion launched the car’s engine 40 yards, flipped the bus over and broke windows nine stories up in the hotel and surrounding buildings.

The bomber, the bus driver and a bystander died along with the Frenchmen. It was the third deadly attack this year on foreigners in Pakistan.

A grenade attack in March on an Islamabad church catering to foreigners killed five people. In late January, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and killed by Islamic militants.