http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/world/asia/taliban-claims-attack-on-pakistani-police-official.html

September 19, 2011

Taliban Claim Attack on Pakistani Police

By SALMAN MASOOD

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing on Monday that targeted a senior police investigator in the southern port city of Karachi. At least eight people were killed in the attack, officials said.

The attack targeted Chaudhry Aslam, a senior police superintendent in Karachi. Mr. Aslam and his family were not injured, but six police guards outside his house were killed. A woman and a child were also killed.

Mr. Aslam has been at the forefront of several successful operations against Taliban insurgents and other criminals in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, which has a history of sectarian and political violence.

The suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the main gate of Mr. Aslam's residence at 7:25 a.m. in the Defense Housing Authority, an upscale neighborhood of the city.

The explosion shook the entire neighborhood, destroyed most of Mr. Aslam's residence and heavily damaged more than a dozen other houses.

After the attack, Mr. Aslam appeared unruffled as he talked with local news networks and said that terrorists would not intimidate him. He said he had received threats but had not believed that attackers would target his children.

"I did not know that these terrorists were such cowards that they would attack sleeping children," Mr. Aslam was quoted by local television news networks. "I will not spare them," Mr. Aslam said, referring to the militants.

In claiming responsibility for the bombing, the Taliban said that Mr. Aslam had arrested and killed many of its fighters.

"We will attack other police officials as well who are taking action against our people," a Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, was quoted as saying by Reuters .

Television footage showed wide destruction. The charred and mangled wreckage of several vehicles lay on the roadside. The explosion left a crater six feet deep.

"My daughter was preparing to go to school when all of a sudden the explosion occurred, " Mohammad Imran, one of Mr. Aslam's neighbors, told Reuters. "My daughter started crying and I ran out of house to see what has happened. I saw a cloud of smoke rising in the sky. Our children are traumatized. Our families are disturbed. There is no security."

Analysts said that the attack signified a new pattern in which Taliban insurgents were targeting senior officers belonging to law enforcing authorities.

The assault was similar to one this month in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two suicide bombers attacked the house of a deputy inspector general of Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that is headed by army officers.

"On one hand, the attack is aimed at demoralizing the security forces, but the attack also shows that Taliban are getting desperate," said Omar R. Quraishi, the opinion page editor of The Express Tribune, an English-language daily in Karachi.

"It also underlines the vulnerability of our cities and state of security in the country" Mr. Quraishi said.

"The fact that a suicide bomber managed to drive an explosives-laden vehicle unchecked to the residence of a high-profile police officer also signified an intelligence failure."