The Guardian reports that a car bomb has exploded in a neighbourhood full of government buildings in the eastern Pakistani city of Faisalabad, killing 20 people and wounding dozens of others, officials said. An office of Pakistan's state-run airline and a local petrol station were damaged in the blast.
The explosion underscored the tenuous security situation in Pakistan. Such attacks have often been ascribed to militants retaliating against army offensives against them.
Senior government official Tahir Hussain said that 20 people died in the blast.
The car bomb apparently also caused a gas cylinder to explode at the station, adding to the destruction, Faisalabad police chief Aftab Cheema said. Police offices as well as the Pakistan International Airlines building are located nearby.
Pakistani TV showed piles of bricks and chunks of twisted metal from cars strewn across the neighbourhood. Rescue workers struggled to pull victims out of the rubble. More than 100 people were wounded, police official Liaquat Ahmed said.
Most attacks carried out by Islamist militants in Pakistan occur in the north-west regions near the border with Afghanistan, and targets are usually police or other security forces.
Faisalabad, 160 miles (260km) south of Islamabad, is a key hub for Pakistan's textile industry and it has rarely been targeted. However, it lies in Punjab province, where Islamist extremist groups are believed to be growing in strength.
