Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08KARACHI488
2008-08-23 11:07:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Karachi
Cable title:  

SUBJECT: KARACHI - BOMB BLAST TARGETS POLICE

Tags:  PGOV PTER PK 
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VZCZCXRO7147
OO RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHKP #0488 2361107
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 231107Z AUG 08
FM AMCONSUL KARACHI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0597
INFO RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 0065
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE PRIORITY 2562
RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR PRIORITY 4445
RUCJACC/USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUCQAAA/USCINCCENT INTEL CEN MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L KARACHI 000488 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/23/2018
TAGS: PGOV PTER PK
SUBJECT: SUBJECT: KARACHI - BOMB BLAST TARGETS POLICE
OFFICIAL

Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY CONSUL GENERAL KAY ANSKE, REASONS 1.4 (b)
AND (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L KARACHI 000488

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/23/2018
TAGS: PGOV PTER PK
SUBJECT: SUBJECT: KARACHI - BOMB BLAST TARGETS POLICE
OFFICIAL

Classified By: CLASSIFIED BY CONSUL GENERAL KAY ANSKE, REASONS 1.4 (b)
AND (d).


1. (SBU) About 11:45 am local time on August 23, Lyari
Police Commander Umar Khitab was slightly injured and two of
his bodyguards sustained unspecified injuries when a convoy
carrying him from a police residential compound was struck by
what appears to have been a remote controlled bomb secreted
on a parked bicycle, according to RSO sources. The bicycle
had been placed beside the main gate to the compound. The
housing compound is located about 2 kilometers east of the
Consulate, very close to Karachi's main east-west road,
Sharah)e-Faisal. The bomb also damaged six parked cars. No
one has claimed responsibility for the bombings at this point.


2. (SBU) Khitab, former head of the Special Criminal
Investigations Division, a unit that also investigates
terrorist incidents, now oversees police operations in the
troubled Lyari district of Karachi. Lyari has been beset by
violent criminal gang rivalry over the past few years, which
police have only begun to address in the last year.


3. (C) Comment: Given the nature and location of Khitab's
latest assignment, Post believes that the attack was most
like orchestrated by one of the two main gangs wrestling each
other and the police for control of Lyari. Muttahid Quami
Movement (MQM) party leader Farouq Sattar confirmed this
analysis to Polcouns on August 23.
Anske