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KARACHI

A city of conflict, killings
PAKISTAN'S largest and
most industrialised city
Karachi is plagued by recurring violence that has claimed thousands of lives over the past two decades. But a massive suicide bombing at the Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday, in which 14 people were killed, including 10 French nationals, has dramatically upped the ante for police trying to control the escalating violence, AFP reports.
IT was the worst attack on foreigners in Pakistan's history and one of the largest bomb blasts seen in a country wracked by bombings almost on a weekly basis.
The incident follows a suicide grenade attack in the capital, Islamabad, in March, in which an American diplomat's wife and daughter were among five killed.
Foreigners here first became the target of "terrorist" attacks in March 1995 when two US consulate officials were gunned down in the area close to the latest blast site.
Four Union Texas oil officials from the United States and their Pakistani driver were shot dead in November 1997.
The city has been plunged into new violence over the past few months with assailants targeting professionals and religious scholars from the dominant Sunni and the minority Shiite sects of Islam.
Wednesday's incident followed the kidnapping and brutal murder in January of American journalist Daniel Pearl, who was investigating a story on religious extremists in Karachi.
Rival ethnic, religious and political groups, as well as drug smugglers shipping opium and heroin out of neighbouring Afghanistan, wracks the port city.
It is also awash with illegal weapons, including Soviet-made Kalashnikov assault rifles.
"Karachi is becoming the hub of terrorist activities. Terrorists are INDIA
converging here from everywhere. It is one of the best hideouts in Pakistan at the moment," said a senior police intelligence officer.
"Everything is available here, sponsors, money, targets and hideouts. It provides the best conditions for terrorists to operate," the officer told AFP.
The trouble here started during the US-backed 1979-89 Muslim resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, during which Pakistan served as a conduit to Western weapons for Afghan Mujahedin.
The gun culture spawned by the Afghan jihad (holy war) and drug mafia fuelled ethnic and sectarian gang wars, which have claimed some 5,000 lives over the past few years.
The city of some 12 million
people is the centre of commercial activity in Pakistan but the violence has deterred badly needed foreign investment.
Provincial Governor Muhammedmian Soomro expressed his "shock and grief" over Wednesday's blast, and blamed anti-Pakistan forces who were out to sabotage the economy at a time when foreign investment was picking up.
He ordered police to mobilise all resources to find the people responsible.
Police said they suspected a "foreign hand" was behind the attack, possibly al-Qaeda extremists loyal to Osama bin Laden, accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
"We cannot rule out the involve-
ment of al-Qaeda… We will investigate the possible involvement of al-Qaeda," said Sindh Police Chief Kamal Shah, adding that the attack was "an act of sabotage" designed to drive away foreign investment.
In fact, the security environment in Pakistan has sharply worsened following a recent series of violent incidents that have included rocket attacks and bombings.
Police appeared baffled as they tried to analyse a string of attacks leading up to a massive suicide car bombing in Karachi.
The spiral of violence seems to be spinning out of control despite President Pervez Musharraf's repeated promises to wipe out sectarianism and terrorism.
Some of the recent incidents have been sparked by the presence of US troops in the northwestern
tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where they are helping Pakistani forces hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists.
A rocket hit a building housing US agents in the northwestern frontier region on Tuesday but caused no casualties, a local official said.
The incident follows a similar attack on the same building on April 30, which also caused minor damage but no casualties.
In the central city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday, four unidentified Afghans shot dead two police and injured a third.
Police said the gunmen opened fire at point-blank range when the police tried to question them.
On Tuesday in southwestern Baluchistan province, unidentified assailants tried to blow up a vital natural gas pipeline but troops foiled the attempt in remote Dera Bugti district, police sources said.
Later Tuesday night a large number of pamphlets calling for jihad (holy war) against Americans were seized in the northwestern provincial capital of Peshawar during a raid on a printing press.
On Monday, rockets were fired at two paramilitary posts in the tribal areas of the northwestern Khyber agency and southwestern Baluchistan province. Police said no casualties were reported.
In the eastern city of Lahore on the same day, prominent religious scholar Murtaza Malik was shot dead along with his driver in what police described as a "terrorist" attack.
The two gunmen who carried out the attack also shot dead a police constable while fleeing the scene.
Late last month 12 women and children were killed and 30 others injured when a powerful bomb ripped through a gathering of minority Shiite Muslims in the central town of Multan.