Pakistan: Karachi bomb blast kills 16 people

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Shoaib Hasan in Karachi: "The sophistication points to jihadist militants"

At least 16 people have been killed in a blast in one of the largest gambling dens in the volatile Pakistani city of Karachi.

Some 30 people are reported to have been wounded in the explosion.

Police say the blast was caused by a bomb which rocked an illegal gambling den run by a local crime gang.

Officials have told the BBC that the nature of the bomb suggests it was planted by Islamist militants.

One report said the den was known as the Rummy Club, and is located in a poorer part of the south of the city, where gambling is an illegal but popular activity.

Shrapnel

The attack took place in the Lyari neighbourhood, where a number of warring drug and arms gangs operate.

Police officials told the BBC the bomb was planted inside a room within the den and detonated by remote control.

Officials say the high number of casualties was due to such a large number of people being packed into the den's chambers.

Police said that the high number of people in the rooms meant the death toll was particularly high

Eyewitnesses described how shrapnel from the bomb ripped through victims, killing many instantly.

The city, Pakistan's commercial capital, has seen a series of political and ethnic attacks which claimed 775 lives last year.

Some are believed to be the responsibility of criminal gangs but the BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Karachi says that the level of sophistication used by the bombers suggest that it was not planted by rival criminal gangs but was rather the work of Islamist militants.