Source: AFP

LAHORE — Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a prestigious naval college in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing at least five people and injuring 19, officials said.

One bomber rammed a motorcycle into the gate of the Naval War College in the heart of Pakistan’s second biggest city, then the second drove another bike into the parking lot where he detonated explosives, they said.

The attack was the fourth in five days in Pakistan, posing a major challenge to the country’s incoming government, set to be a coalition led by the parties of slain ex-premier Benazir Bhutto and former premier Nawaz Sharif.

The blasts sent thick black smoke billowing over the college and scattered debris and human remains at the scene, which is just off the city’s historic Mall Road. Two buses and several cars caught fire afterwards.

“Two suicide bombers attacked the naval college,” Lahore police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal told AFP.

“The first drove into the security post and they opened fire. His head was blown over the wall into the naval compound by the force of the blast,” Iqbal added.

“He cleared the way for the second bomber to drive into the parking lot where he also exploded himself.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said five people were killed and another 19 were wounded, according to initial reports.

Navy spokesman Captain Akbar Naqi confirmed there were two suicide bombers. He added that one navy personnel was among those killed.

The Naval War College trains senior naval officials from Pakistan and from other countries including China, Sri Lanka and at least a dozen Muslim nations.

“The blasts were so huge they shook the windowpanes of my office opposite the college. I thought the building was collapsing,” Lahore lawyer Arif Saeed told AFP.

Pakistan has been combating an Islamist insurgency led by Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters since President Pervez Musharraf joined the US-led “war on terror” in 2001, but the violence has soared since the start of 2007.

Around 600 people have died since the start of this year in suicide attacks, roadside bombings and clashes, mainly along the Afghan border in troubled northwestern Pakistan but also in major cities.

Tuesday’s attack comes two days after a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up at a meeting of tribal elders discussing how to tackle Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the northwestern town of Darra Adam Khel, killing 43 people.

On Friday, another bomber killed at least 44 people in the northwestern Swat valley at the funeral for a policeman killed in a roadside bombing. On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed two people in the lawless Bajaur tribal district.

The army’s top medical officer, Lieutenant General Mushtaq Baig, was killed in a suicide attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on February 25.

Pakistani troops opened fire on a pick-up truck carrying Islamic militants in a troubled tribal area, blowing up the vehicle and killing five rebels, the military said Tuesday.

The Lahore attack came as the chief of the US military held talks with Musharraf and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani in Rawalpindi on his second visit to Pakistan in a month.

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Tags: motorcycle, naval college, Suicide bombers