TRAGEDY IN PAKISTAN -- (BY KAMRAN KHAN AND MOLLY MOORE) (Extension of Remarks - March 09, 1995)

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HON. THOMAS J. MANTON

in the House of Representatives

THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1995

[FROM THE WASHINGTON POST, MARCH 9, 1995]

(BY KAMRAN KHAN AND MOLLY MOORE)

Karachi, Pakistan, March 8.--The ambush of a U.S. Consulate van by masked gunmen who killed two Americans and injured a third at a busy intersection in downtown Karachi, Pakistan, this morning was a `well-planned campaign to create panic and terror' among Americans and other Westerners, according to a Pakistani official.

Today's attack marked the first time terrorists have targeted Westerners after a year of rampant religious, ethnic and political violence that has left more than 1,000 people dead in Pakistan's financial and commercial capital.

In Washington, a senior administration official said one of the two Americans killed was an intelligence agent working under diplomatic cover, but the U.S. government does not believe this was related to the attack.

Instead, the official said, investigators believe the attack was intended as a payback for the U.S. capture in Pakistan last month of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the suspected mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, or was related to the ethnic violence in Pakistan. The official said there is `no evidence whatsoever' that the assailants knew about the victim's intelligence work.

As Pakistani authorities vowed to launch a full-scale investigation of today's shooting, Karachi police officials revealed that police in a squad car equipped with a rooftop machine gun were at the intersection where the ambush occurred but refused to


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