Police: Gunmen attack Japanese vehicle in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on a Japanese consular vehicle in Pakistan's largest city Thursday, wounding two of the mission's local employees and underscoring the poor security situation in the country.The attack may have been an attempted robbery because the three Pakistanis in the car had stopped by a bank to get cash before they were ambushed, police official Javed Akbar Riaz said. The two wounded men were in stable condition.

Crime has long been a problem in Karachi, a sprawling port city of more than 16 million with a history of political, ethnic and religious tensions. Criminals appear to have grown more active over the past decade as Pakistan's government has tried to curb the growth of the Taliban, and the Islamist militants are believed to benefit from their links to crime syndicates.

Kazuhiro Kawase, a spokesman at Japan's Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, confirmed the shooting and said no Japanese diplomatic officials were in the car when it took place. Police in Karachi said the vehicle's license plates indicated it belonged to the Japanese consulate.

"We are still confirming what sort of damage there was to the vehicle or what sort of injuries people inside might have sustained." Kawase said.

Japan and Pakistan have good relations, and Tokyo has been generous in providing aid to the Muslim-majority nation.

Still, the attack could spur foreign diplomatic missions to upgrade their security procedures in Karachi and elsewhere. Foreigners, including Americans, have been attacked several times in Pakistan, and many of the attacks are believed linked to Islamist militant groups.

Earlier Thursday, a suspected U.S. missile strike on a house in northwest Pakistan killed seven alleged militants, three intelligence officials said.

It was the third such airstrike in 24 hours in the North Waziristan tribal region, which is home to hundreds of Pakistani and foreign Islamist militants, many belonging to or allied with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The region also hosts the Haqqani network, a powerful insurgent group that U.S. officials say is behind many of the attacks on U.S. and NATO forces just across the border in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with the policy of the agency they work for. The region is too dangerous for outsiders to visit and independently confirm the attacks, and U.S. officials do not acknowledge firing the missiles, much less discuss who they are targeting.

There have now been at least 20 suspected U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan this month. There were 21 such attacks in September, nearly double the previous monthly record. They are fired by unmanned drones that fly over the region for hours.

The Pakistani Taliban, one of the largest groups in Pakistan's tribal belt, beheaded three people Thursday in the Mohmand region after accusing them of robbing and kidnapping people posing as militants, local government official Meraj Khan said. The insurgents have gained support in some areas by claiming to dispense quick and fair justice, as well as deterring crime.