Blast at Pak gas station,25 die

Militants set off a car-bomb at a natural gas filling station in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad.

Militants set off a car-bomb at a natural gas filling station in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad on Tuesday killing 25 people,many of them lining up for fuel for their cars,the police said.

The car-bomb set off gas cylinders causing a big explosion that destroyed or severely damaged nearby buildings and reduced numerous vehicles to blackened shells. A Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility.

Many of those killed were people waiting to get their cars filled,district police chief Aftab Cheema told Reuters. More than 125 people were wounded in the blast in Pakistans textile-producing hub,280 km southeast of the capital,Islamabad,he said.

Cheema declined to speculate on the militants target but said a sensitive organisation had an office close to the filling station. Media said the countrys main police investigation agency had an office nearby. A Taliban spokesman,Ehsanullah Ehsan,claimed responsibility,telling Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location the attack was in retaliation for the killing of one of their commanders in the city. He was referring to the killing of a senior Pakistani Taliban member in a shoot-out with police in Faisalabad last year.

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