Blast in Pakistan kills at least 3, wounds judge

MULTAN, Pakistan, Mar 2 (Reuters) A bicycle bomb exploded near a flyover in the central Pakistani city of Multan today, killing three policemen and wounding several including a anti-terrorism judge, police and hospital officials said.

''We received dead bodies of two policemen while a third one expired at the hospital,'' said Gul Nawaz, chief medical official at the Nishter Hospital.

Six policemen and two passers-by were also wounded by the remote-controlled device that appeared to target the judge's car, Additional Inspector General Police Mirza Mohammad Ali said.

''The bomb was planted on a bicycle and went off as the car of the special judge, Bashir Ahmed Bhatti, passed by,'' he told Reuters.

''Judging by the impact of the blast, it appears to be very heavy explosive,'' Ali said. ''I would call today's attack religious terrorism.'' Pakistan is in the midst of a nationwide security scare following a series of suicide bomb attacks that started after a military air strike in mid-January against compounds used by al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the country's tribal lands, close to the Afghan border.

The bloodiest attack killed 16 people including a senior civil judge in a courtroom on February 18 in Quetta, capital of restive Baluchistan province that also borders Afghanistan.

Intelligence officials have linked some of the attacks, that have killed nearly 50 people this year, to Islamist militants seeking to destabilise President Pervez Musharraf's government and weaken his resolve to confront the Taliban, al Qaeda and their allies.

The country is braced for further militant retaliation as Musharraf faces mounting American pressure to stop al Qaeda rebuilding its network from Pakistan, and to stem the flow of Taliban fighters crossing over to join the Afghan insurgency.

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