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United States on Friday decided to shut down its diplomatic missions in Pakistan, including its embassy in Islamabad and consulate in Karachi, after a car bomb explosion outside its Karachi mission killed 11 people and wounded more than 40.
The embassy and American Center were closed to the public immediately after the blast, as were the consulates in Lahore and Peshawar, Lynn Cassel, a state department spokeswoman was quoted as saying in an agency report.
The bombing -- which damaged the Karachi consulate and killed 11 people, none of them US government employees -- slightly wounded a US Marine guard and five local Pakistani employees at the mission, she said.
"In addition, we believe that two or more contract consulate guards were critically injured," Cassel said, calling the explosion the result of an 'enormous truck bomb' that went off just 15 metres from the southeast corner of the consulate.
US embassy spokesman Mark Wentworth in Islamabad said, "For the near future, the consulate in Karachi will not be open to the public for consular and other routine business."
"This explosion is a stark reminder again to all Americans living or travelling through Pakistan of the need to pay attention to their personal security situation," he added.
It was the second car bomb attack on western targets in Karachi in five weeks.
On May 8 a suicide bomber had killed 11 French naval technicians by ramming his car into a bus picking them up from Sheraton Hotel, situated a few kilometres away from the US consulate.
Earlier in March, a suicide bomber had blown himself up in a church in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, killing five worshippers, including the wife and daughter of an American diplomat.
Agencies
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