A huge car bomb exploded outside the Danish Embassy in the Pakistani capital on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said.
The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater over a meter deep in the road in front of the main gate to the embassy. Glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles littered the area. People, some bloodied, ran helter-skelter in a state of panic.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri recently called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the publication of caricatures in Danish newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
A perimeter wall of the embassy collapsed and its metal gate was blown inward but the embassy building itself remained intact.
Officials at two hospitals reported at least five people - including two policemen - were killed and 32 wounded in the blast, none of them foreigners. It was the second targeting of foreigners in the usually tranquil Pakistani capital in less than three months.
