Pakistani Police Seek 3 Suspects in Blast

Police said Saturday that they were hunting for three suspects believed to have bought a car used in a suicide bombing last week that killed the bomber and 11 French citizens.

The bodies of the 11 Westerners were handed over to French officials at a somber ceremony and were to be flown to France.

Pakistani authorities have issued sketches of the three suspects, who are believed to have paid about $1,700 for the beaten-up 1974 Toyota a day before Wednesday’s attack in Karachi. A reward of $34,000 has been offered for clues leading to a breakthrough.

“We have some information about the three suspects, and we have also collected some evidence from the scene of the occurrence, but I cannot say that we have made any major breakthrough,” said a senior police official, who asked not to be identified.

The suicide bomber drove alongside a Pakistani navy bus Wednesday morning, detonating a powerful bomb that killed 11 French navy experts and two Pakistanis and wounded 22 people.

The blast blew a crater in the road, reduced the bus to a twisted and blackened skeleton, and splattered blood and body parts down the street.

Twelve French citizens wounded in the blast were flown to Paris on a German military hospital plane Thursday.

On Saturday afternoon, about 500 mourners, including the French ambassador to Pakistan, about 90 other French nationals and senior Pakistani navy and government officials, gathered at a naval hospital in Karachi to pay their respects to the victims.