Pat Dollard

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NYTimes:

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 the residence of Mr. Aslam 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.