Embassy blast raises security fears

Islamabad: A day after a bomb attack outside the Danish embassy, Pakistani investigators questioned residents and tested the residue of the explosives used, while suspicion for the blast fell on Al Qaida or its allies.

Monday's suicide car bombing in the capital, Islamabad, followed a relative lull in militant attacks since a new government made up of parties opposed to President Pervez Musharraf came to power after February elections.

Though all those killed were Pakistanis, the blast will raise concern about the safety of foreigners in Pakistan.

One security analyst saw the attack as an open-and-shut case of extremists fulfilling an open-ended threat to attack the embassy, because of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) that Danish newspapers published in late 2005.

"It was to be expected that they would do something," said Ikram Sehgal, chairman of the Group Four Securicor (G4S) companies in Pakistan.

Deadly protests

The cartoons, considered blasphemous by Muslims, sparked deadly protests and attacks on Danish missions. The embassy in Islamabad was temporarily shut in 2006 after protests, and it was reported to have received threats.

The Netherlands embassy relocated from a nearby residential area to a well-protected hotel last month, because of similar threats levelled after an anti-immigration lawmaker made a film regarded as anti-Muslim.

Norway's embassy, round the corner from the Danish mission, has been closed since the attack.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast but the Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it believed the embassy was the target and Al Qaida or an allied group was responsible.

The agency said it was sending a team to Pakistan to investigate and it was raising its "terror threat assessment level" against Danes abroad.

"Extremists can be inspired by the attack in Pakistan," the agency's director, Jakob Scharf, said in a statement.

But retired Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, the former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, said he doubted the cartoons were the main motive for the attack.