At least 10 people were killed today and a number were wounded, many of them with injuries from broken glass, when a bomb went off in an upscale shopping district in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. The attack is the latest in a growing number of bombings across the country over the past few weeks.
So far there has been no claim of responsibility, and indeed officials initially were unsure if it was a bomb at all, or just an electric generator exploding. Reports of a second blast were later denied, with officials saying the first blast was a bomb, and the second was just a tire blow-out that happened nearby.
This was the second bombing in Lahore in the last 10 days. The previous bombing took place outside of the provincial parliament building, hitting during a rally among pharmacists protesting against planned legal changes.
Though security in the upscale neighborhoods of Lahore is usually much higher, the area where today’s bombing hit had some construction activity ongoing, which likely meant a lot of unusual traffic in the area which militants could take advantage of to plant a bomb.