Pakistani Taliban claim Lahore suicide bombing: Report

A group calling itself "Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab" has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in Lahore. The Islamist monitors SITE cited the group as saying the attack "targeted the 'nest of evil' in Lahore, and was a 'humble gift' to the mujahideen who suffer beneath the attacks of Pakistani forces in Swat."

A Pakistani Taliban group has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a Lahore police building that killed 24 people, a US specialist Islamist monitoring group said.

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A group calling itself "Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab" made the claim On Wednesday in a Turkish-language statement posted on Turkish jihadist websites through an organisation called Elif Media.

The Islamist monitors SITE cited the group as saying the attack "targeted the 'nest of evil' in Lahore, and was a 'humble gift' to the mujahideen who suffer beneath the attacks of Pakistani forces in Swat."

It specified that a vehicle laden with 100 kilos of explosives be blown up outside a security building in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province in Pakistan, destroying the building and injuring hundreds more.

"Tehrik-i-Taliban Punjab asks Muslims in Pakistan to stay away from areas where the enemy is 'taking advantage' of them, so that they are not harmed by jihadi attacks," SITE added.

The blast was the third deadly attack to rock the country's liberal cultural capital in as many months.

A senior investigator told AFP the attack was the likely handiwork of Al-Qaeda linked Taliban militants operating from Pakistan's wild Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan.

One of the attackers was shot dead by security guards as he approached the building, and two others perished in the explosion, the investigator said.