Six people, including at least two Pakistani security guards employed by the State Department, were killed in a suicide bomb and rocket attack against the U.S. consulate in Peshawar this morning. No Americans were killed. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault and compared it to December’s suicide bombing of a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan.
State has been trying to increase the security of its embassies and consulates since 1998, when al Qaida destroyed American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Despite the loss of life this morning, the Peshawar consulate’s beefed up security measures appear to have helped repel the brunt of the attack:
Militants managed to damage barracks that formed part of the outer layer of security for the heavily fortified consulate area, but did not penetrate inside, the Pakistani intelligence officer said.
