LAHORE, Pakistan — A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into the main gate of a safe house used for interrogation by the Pakistani military in the city of Lahore early Monday. The explosion killed at least seven people, including guards, the police said, and flattened the building. More than 30 people were wounded in the explosion, according to early reports from a nearby hospital where the victims were taken.
The blast was heard across the city, witnesses said. Rescue workers dug through the rubble of the destroyed building looking for people trapped in the debris.
A number of schools and religious institutions, including the Quran Academy, are located in the neighborhood known as Model Town. A number of prominent politicians, including a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, live in Model Town.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which came after a lull of several months in attacks on military and security targets in Pakistan’s main cities by militants from Al Qaeda and their affiliates in the Pakistani Taliban.
Installations of the security forces in Lahore, the cultural heart of Pakistan and a cosmopolitan city of more than six million, have been a particular target of the militants.
Last year, a large complex owned by the Federal Intelligence Agency, as well as several safe houses, were blown up by suicide bombers in Lahore.
The attack on Monday came as the Pakistani military announced it had completed an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the major base of the militants in the remote tribal area.
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