Blast Puts Pakistan On High Alert

President Pervez Musharraf ordered security forces on maximum alert Wednesday and said the suicide car bombing that killed 11 French workers and two of his citizens was an act of international terrorism.

An Interior Ministry official blamed the attack on "external elements," saying they could either be members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization or agents of Pakistan's eastern neighbor and archrival, India.

"This act of international terrorism has to be met with full force," Musharraf said on state television. "My government has the complete resolve for meeting this threat."

The Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Musharraf called an emergency national security meeting in the capital, Islamabad. The military ruler ordered security along the border with Afghanistan further strengthened to stanch the flow of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing U.S.-led coalition forces.

While authorities blamed external forces, many Islamic militants inside Pakistan have close links to al Qaeda. They have vowed revenge for Musharraf's banning of five militant groups earlier this year after he sided with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign and war in Afghanistan.

The car bombing injured dozens and blew a hole 10-feet deep in the pavement outside the Sheraton Hotel. Police said 23 people were hospitalized, 12 of them French.

The French victims were engineers at France's state-owned naval construction service who were building a second Agosta submarine Pakistan purchased from France.

"By attacking the French citizens working on defense projects, they attempted to weaken Pakistan's defense capabilities," Musharraf said.

French President Jacques Chirac condemned the attack as "odious" and dispatched his newly appointed defense minister to Pakistan.

In a phone call, Chirac urged Musharraf to take necessary measures to protect the French community and to "put everything in place to find and punish the authors of this terrorist attack."

Musharraf invited French authorities to assist in the investigation, Pakistan's state news agency reported. The Interior Ministry official said the Pakistani leader also asked anti-terrorism experts from the United States and Japan to join the probe.

"We strongly condemn this heinous terrorist attack against France and Pakistan, two of our closest allies in the global war on terrorism," a State Department official said. "We extend our sympathies to the families of the victims and to France and Pakistan."

The official said the U.S. was willing to assist Pakistan in its investigation of the attack.

Witnesses said the French workers were sitting in a shuttle bus waiting to be taken to the Arabian Sea port when the bomber pulled along side, tires screeching. Seconds later a thunderous explosion launched the car's engine 40 yards, flipped the bus over and broke windows nine stories up in the hotel and in surrounding buildings.

The bomber, the bus driver and a bystander died along with the Frenchmen.

"I could just hear screaming and more screaming and I saw blood and it was everywhere and body parts," said hotel waiter Mohammed Anis, his hands trembling.

Officials said the bomb was planted in a 1974 Toyota Corolla and was so powerful it sent the car's engine flying 100 feet down the street and blew out almost all the windows facing the road in the 10-story Sheraton and nine-story Pearl Continental.

Munir Sheikh, a police officer who witnessed the explosion, said, "the sound was so loud I think you could have heard it from six miles away."

Ambulances struggled to reach the scene through the congested early morning traffic of Karachi, Pakistan's largest city with 14 million people. Police and even some of the injured flagged down cars to transport people to hospitals.

While condemning the attack, Musharraf appealed for understanding of "our domestic environment resulting from our cooperation against international terrorism. ... Pakistan will do, and already is doing, all it can to combat international terrorism," he said.

It was the third deadly attack this year on foreigners in Pakistan.

A grenade attack on an Islamabad church catering to foreigners in March killed five people. In late January, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi and killed by Islamic militants protesting the detention of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The latest blow to foreign confidence sent the Karachi stock market plummeting 3 percent. Singapore Airlines suspended all flights to Pakistan starting Friday, citing the "prevailing security situation."

The New Zealand and Pakistani cricket teams canceled a five-day match to have opened in Karachi on Wednesday. The teams were staying in a hotel across the street from the Sheraton.

Westerners in Pakistan have been warned to use caution because of threats from Islamic groups protesting Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led coalition's war in Afghanistan.

Families of U.S. and Canadian diplomats were pulled out of Pakistan after the church attack and a travel warning was issued by the State Department.