- ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber killed at least one person at a bank in Islamabad on Monday, a police official and a witness said, in a rare attack in the capital.
“The bomber walked into the bank and blew himself up when the security guard tried to search him,” witness Hammad Ahmad told Reuters.
Pakistan’s Taleban movement often stages suicide bombings but attacks in Islamabad have been rare in recent years.
The last serious attack was in December of 2009, when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a naval headquarters, killing a guard and wounding two navy personnel.
The Taleban have staged several large scale attacks to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces in a Pakistani town on May 2. They have targeted paramilitary cadets, a naval base and a US consulate convoy.
The militant groups has not specifically attacked banks or other economic institutions in the past, but bombs have exploded in commercial areas.
“The bomber probably blew himself up inside the bank as his head is lying inside,” Islamabad police chief Wajid Ali Durrani told reporters. He said at least one person was killed and three wounded.