Bombing kills 23 in Pakistan

In the first major suicide attack since the assassination of Benazir Bhutto two weeks ago, a bomber blew himself up Thursday in front of a provincial high court building, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 60 others.

The attack in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore was viewed as a possible harbinger of a new outbreak of violence in the weeks remaining before crucial parliamentary elections on Feb. 18. Police were put on high alert across the country.

The powerful blast came moments before a weekly demonstration by opposition lawyers, and on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Muharram, which has been marked in recent years by suicide bombings and sectarian strife in Pakistan.

It was unclear whether the intended target in Thursday’s bombing was the lawyers or the large contingent of police officers standing by in preparation for the protest.

The lawyers in Lahore gather every week at the same spot, outside the high court building, to protest Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s crackdown on the judiciary during a six-week state of emergency late last year.

Nearly all of those killed in the explosion in the city center were police officers, but dozens of passersby were among the injured. No one immediately claimed responsibility.

“We could be entering a very, very difficult period,” analyst Ejaz Haider said of the run-up to next month’s elections.

Elections for parliament and provincial assemblies, originally scheduled for Wednesday, were put off in the wake of three days of rioting that broke out after Bhutto, a former prime minister and the best-known opposition figure, was killed Dec. 27.

A gunman and a suicide bomber ambushed the 54-year-old politician as she left a rally in Rawalpindi. She had espoused a tougher fight against Islamic militants.

After her death, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and the other main opposition group, the party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had pushed to hold the balloting on schedule this week, but Musharraf’s government decreed the delay.

The opposition, together with some independent groups, has expressed skepticism that a fair vote can take place, whenever the elections are held. Campaigning has been sharply curtailed because many people are afraid to attend large open-air rallies, the electronic media are operating under tight restrictions and some of the country’s most senior judges and lawyers remain under house arrest.

The explosion in Lahore left behind a tableau of a busy midmorning interrupted: two motorized rickshaws stopped in their tracks, a riderless motorcycle, scattered shoes and bloodstained scraps of clothing. Police helmets and shields were scattered over a wide area.

The blast shattered car windows along the length of the street and broke windows in the colonial-era courthouse, although no one inside was hurt.

An Associated Press photographer reported seeing the severed head of a man with long hair. In suicide bombings, the attacker is often decapitated by the upward force of the blast.

Musharraf, in a statement issued by his office and carried by the state-run news agency, condemned the attack and declared that extremists would not be allowed to prevail.

Witnesses said the bomber rushed up to a police barricade before detonating his explosives. Police said the device contained up to 30 pounds of explosives laced with nails and screws meant to maim or kill those caught in the blast.

Adding to the chaos, tear-gas canisters carried by police went off when the officers were hit, and the choking clouds made it difficult for rescuers to aid the wounded.

Several lawyers who were to have taken part in the rally said the protesters, who were to have included dozens of barristers marching from a district courthouse about half a mile away, were running late and had not assembled by their usual time.

During the state of emergency that lasted from Nov. 3 to Dec. 15, lawyers’ demonstrations were often broken up by police. But a suicide bomber had not struck a lawyers’ gathering since July, when an attack in the capital, Islamabad, killed at least 13 people at a rally in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whom Musharraf had suspended.

The top jurist, who had allowed many cases embarrassing to the government to be heard by the Supreme Court, was later fired by Musharraf and remains confined to his residence in the capital.

Pakistan had been tense but largely quiet since the unrest that erupted in the days after Bhutto’s death last month. Paramilitary police and army troops were called out to quell the rioting, concentrated in Bhutto’s home province of Sindh. The clashes killed dozens of people and caused millions of dollars in property damage.

Musharraf has said troops would be used if necessary to keep public order in advance of the parliamentary vote.

Islamic militants have been blamed for more than 50 suicide attacks in Pakistan last year, many targeting government installations and security forces.

Attacks by militant groups intensified in the months following an assault by government troops in July on a radical mosque in Islamabad. More than 100 people died in the storming of the Red Mosque and the standoff preceding it, and militants as divergent as homegrown groups and Al Qaeda and the Taliban vowed to avenge the deaths.

Through the months of escalating attacks, Lahore had been largely spared even though it serves as a headquarters for several militant groups and is a center of political activity.

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laura.king@latimes.com