Blast outside KFC in Pakistan kills three
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-15 23:23

Pakistanis escort an injured man after a car bomb exploded in Karachi November 15, 2005.[Reuters]

The blast marked the first time the group has claimed responsibility for an attack outside Baluchistan province, where it has launched occasional bomb and rocket attacks against security forces, gas installations and other infrastructure.

Interior Minister Abtab Khan Sherpao told the private Geo television network the group's claims were being investigated.

Karachi has been the target of a number of bombings in recent months that have killed more than a dozen people. Police said they had tightened security in the city and were searching for clues about those behind the attack, including from security cameras installed near the bomb site.

Hundreds of people gathered at the bomb site in the area of government offices and luxury hotels. The blast was powerful enough to damage windowpanes at the Pearl Continental Hotel, which is popular with foreign tourists and businesspeople.

Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, is a center of Islamic militancy, and previous bombings in the city have been linked to extremists opposed to Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's close ties to the United States.

Pakistan's information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, condemned the blast, calling it the work of the "enemies of Pakistan."

The attack came three days before Pakistan is to host a conference of international donors to raise funds for victims of the devastating Oct. 8 earthquake that killed about 86,000 people in the country's northwest and in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Hundreds of U.S. and other foreign troops are in the country helping with quake relief.

In September, bombs struck KFC and McDonald's restaurants in Karachi, injuring three people in attacks believed linked to a nationwide strike called by a hardline Islamic coalition opposed to Musharraf.

A KFC restaurant in Karachi also was burned in May, killing six workers inside during an outbreak of religious violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups in the city.