Death toll from Pakistan rally blast rises to 17
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) — The death toll from Sunday’s suicide bomb attack at a rally in Islamabad has risen to 17 after a police constable succumbed to his injuries, officials said.
The additional death brings to 13 the number of officers killed when the attacker detonated an explosive.
The other four casualties are civilians: the blast also wounded another 52 people.
On Monday, investigators combed through the site of the explosion looking for clues about the attacker, police said.
The suicide bomber detonated near a police station at the outermost security perimeter of a protection cordon set up by the government for Sunday’s rally, according to Islamabad police Inspector General Asghar Gardezi.
The rally was organized outside Islamabad’s Red Mosque to protest the government’s deadly raid and siege of the mosque last July.
In the aftermath of Sunday’s attack, the bodies of several policemen lay on the side of the road, while other police officers and civilians seriously wounded in the blast were loaded onto stretchers and placed in ambulances.
The attacker struck the police position on a roundabout around 8 p.m. (10 a.m. ET) near the rally and near a marketplace. Watch the chaotic aftermath
Police say it appears the suicide attacker was either on foot or on a bicycle. There was no initial evidence of a car bombing.
Pakistan’s Acting Interior Minister Rehman Malik said some 12,000 people attended Sunday’s rally, which marked a year since the government standoff and subsequent raid on Islamabad’s Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid.
Malik, who headed to the blast site shortly after the attack, said there were no lapses in security provided for Sunday’s rally. Pakistan speaks out about blast
Last year’s July 10 raid — ordered by President Pervez Musharraf, who was Pakistan’s army chief at the time — ended a week-long bloody stand-off between military forces and Islamic extremists.
More than 100 people died when the security forces stormed the mosque. Most were radical students holed up inside, but the dead also included some women and children.
The raid was intended to rout Islamic extremists seeking to establish Taliban-style rule across the capital.
But instead, it led to more suicide attacks on civilians, police and security forces.
It also led to the collapse of a controversial cease-fire between Musharraf’s government and tribal leaders in the lawless territories along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
The 2006 truce was blamed for establishing a safe haven for Taliban and al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan’s tribal regions.
Musharraf’s popularity further plummeted following the raid. His grip on power had already been tested by widespread protests earlier in 2007 because of his dismissal and house arrest of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
A month after the raid, he considered imposing a state of emergency in Pakistan, senior government officials said, citing the growing security threat in the tribal regions.
The officials said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helped talk him out of imposing the measure — which his critics said would have been merely a ploy to help him regain power and silence his political opponents. Musharraf eventually did impose a six-week state of emergency starting in early November, suspending the constitution and sacking dozens of judges.
That move backfired, leading more Pakistanis to rally behind Musharraf’s political opponents, and helping the opposition win control of the government in February.
Musharraf remains president under the new government, but his power has eroded since the elections and after he abandoned his position as Pakistan’s army chief late last year.
