KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Two bombs ripped through an Islamic school yesterday in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, killing eight and injuring 42 in the latest outbreak of violence gripping the southern metropolis, officials said.

The blasts went off near a restaurant on the grounds of Jamia Binoria, a Sunni Muslim seminary where thousands of teenagers and young adults study, said senior police official Fayyaz Leghari.

There was no claim of responsibility.

Eight people died and 42 others were injured, Leghari said. Some were Jamia Binoria students, but no casualty breakdown was available.

One of the dead was a child who'd been passing by with his parents, said Iqrar Abbasi, a doctor at Civil Hospital Karachi.
Seminary spokesman Ghulam Rabbani said there were two explosions - the first apparently intended to draw a crowd.

"The first one was smaller. When people got to the site there was another explosion," he said.

Officials had earlier reported that the attack was near Jamia Islamia Binori Town, a prominent seminary linked with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

However, Jamia Binoria, where the blasts occurred, is not believed to have such links.

Explosive experts defused another bomb hidden in a plastic shopping bag near the scene of last night's blasts, Leghari said.

President Gen Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack and expressed grief over the killings, state-run Pakistan Television reported.

Musharraf appealed for people to help keep peace in Karachi, PTV reported. Violence in revenge for attacks is common in the city.

More than 100 police and paramilitary troops blocked off streets in the blast area last night.

The explosion shattered windows in the restaurant and other buildings. Glass and rubble littered the nearby street, along with the burned wreckage of a motorcycle on which one of the bombs was planted.

"We were drinking tea in the restaurant when the first bomb exploded. We rushed outside," said Hayaullah Khan, 20, a student at the school.

Meanwhile, police stepped up patrols and vehicle checks for bombs and weapons in the capital, Islamabad, said Sultan Azam Temuri, a police official there.

Temuri said that the Karachi blasts were "in our mind", but that there was no specific threat of an attack in Islamabad.

Karachi - Pakistan's main port city and commercial centre - is believed to be a hide-out for Islamic militants, some with suspected al-Qaeda links.

In recent months the city has seen several bombings and attacks targeting security forces and Westerners, including an assassination attempt against a senior general in June. The general survived, but 10 other people died.

Much of the violence in the city of about 14 million people is blamed on Islamic hard-liners angered by Musharraf's decision to ally with the US-led war against terrorism.

On Saturday, a bomb killed two people outside a Karachi car dealership in a part of the city where police had arrested al-Qaeda operative Ramzi Binalshibh after a shootout in September 2002.

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