ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A car bombing that killed at least six people and wounded dozens of others near the Danish Embassy on Monday raised fears that al-Qaeda-linked militants might be moving to fill a void left by other Islamist fighters seeking truces with Pakistan’s new government.
The powerful blast occurred in a leafy, upscale neighborhood of the capital, just outside the gates of the embassy, which has been the target of angry protests over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad published in Danish newspapers. It was the second bombing in less than three months to target foreigners or foreign interests in the Pakistani capital.
The explosion could be heard across much of the normally tranquil city. It shattered windows in the embassy building, left a deep crater in the road outside and wrecked dozens of vehicles parked nearby.
Most embassy personnel were no longer working in the building, in the wake of protests early this year after Danish newspapers reprinted the 2005 cartoons.
The force of the blast, which came during lunch hour, twisted the embassy’s heavy metal gates and knocked down a section of the wall surrounding the building.
Recently, Ayman Zawahri, the second-in-command of al-Qaeda, had urged followers to strike at Danish targets over the offending cartoons. The blast, coming after weeks of relative calm in Pakistan, suggested that the government may be vulnerable to such attacks even if it can make peace with so-called local Taliban.
Pakistan’s ruling coalition, led by the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, condemned the attack.
But officials said they would not be deterred from conducting negotiations with Islamic militants based in Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border and elsewhere in the country’s volatile northwest.
Those negotiations have resulted in accords with some smaller militant groups but not with Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the main umbrella group of Pakistani Taliban.
