A Taliban suicide bomber detonated a vehicle packed with explosives Monday outside the home of a senior police officer tasked with cracking down on militants in Pakistan's largest city. The blast killed at least eight people and left a crater 10 feet (3 meters) deep,police said. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the southern port city of Karachi. The target of the bombing,Chaudhry Aslam,escaped unscathed and said he would not be cowed by the attack. "This is a cowardly act,'' Aslam told local television. "I'm not scared. I will not spare them.'' The bomb exploded early Monday as many children were headed to a school located near Aslam's home in the Defense neighborhood of Karachi,an upscale residential area that rarely experiences militant attacks or other forms of violence that plague the city. The eight people killed in the attack included six policeman guarding Aslam's house and a mother and daughter,said Aslam. He estimated that at least 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of explosives were used in the attack. Local television footage showed extensive damage from the blast. The front of one two-story concrete building was totally blown away. Rubble littered the streets amid the burned carcasses of cars hit by the explosion. Aslam is a top police officer in the Crime Investigation Department,which works to arrest Taliban fighters and other militants in Karachi,a bustling city that is home to some 18 million people and is also Pakistan's main commercial hub. Karachi has not seen as many militant attacks as other major cities in Pakistan,but it is believed to be home to many Taliban militants who have fled army operations in the northwest near the Afghan border. A purported Taliban spokesman,Qari Nusrat,claimed responsibility for Monday's attack. "Our men in Karachi carried out this attack,'' Nusrat said. Nusrat said he was based in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border and was asked by the Pakistani Taliban's official spokesman,Ahsanullah Ahsan,to contact the media to claim responsibility for the attack.
