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T V Parasuram in Washington
The United States state department has dispatched additional special agents to Karachi to assist in the investigation of Friday's car bomb attack on the American consulate there, which left 11 people dead and many others injured, its spokesman has said.
State department spokesman Richard Boucher, however, refused for 'security reasons' to provide details on the number of additional Diplomatic Security Service special agents sent to Karachi.
The US, he said, is coordinating with the Pakistani authorities to enhance security in all of its diplomatic facilities in Pakistan and has already beefed up security inside the consulate compound in Karachi.
Boucher said the US diplomatic posts in Pakistan are open for business, but the Karachi consulate was not an 'open-to-the-public visa-issuing post'.
Only those who have business and have appointments can go to the consulate general in Karachi, he said, adding for visas, they will have to go to other facilities.
Meanwhile, US administration officials said that in the wake of Friday's attack, they would view Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf as perhaps Washington's most important ally in the global war against terrorism, the Wall Street Journal reported in a dispatch from Islamabad.
But the US officials also said that there is a growing concern about Musharraf's vulnerability to Islamist militant groups, including Al Qaeda, operating inside his country, the paper said.
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