US President George W. Bush said on Friday that "radical killers," who were responsible for a suicide car bomb attack on the US consulate in Karachi that killed at least 11 Pakistanis, would not intimidate the United States.
"We fight an enemy that are radical killers. That's what they are. They claim they're religious people and they blow up Muslims. They have no regard for individual life," Bush told reporters in Houston.
"These people, if they think they are going to intimidate the United States, they don't understand the United States of America," Bush said.
He vowed that the United States would continue to hunt down these radical killers and bring them to justice.
The blast occurred around 11:15 a.m. local time on Friday. The bomb was planted in a white Suzuki van, which crashed into the consulate guard post, leaving a hole about three meters wide in the building's heavy concrete wall.
US Marines immediately closed the entrances to the consulate building and took up protective positions. A spokesman for the US consulate said that six of their staffers, including one US national, were injured in the blast.
On March 17, a suicide grenade attack at a church in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave killed five people, including two Americans.
(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2002)