The Naval War College Bomb Blasts

I was about 800 meters away from the bomb blast. The force of the explosion was powerful enough to rattle the windows nearly a mile away. There were secondary explosions from the blast. The explosions happened approximately 10-15 minutes apart. The location was GOR - Government Officer's Residence - where the Punjab bureaucracy lives and where the judges also have their residences.

The Naval War College is the same venue, where General Karamat made his speech for which he later had to resign paving the way for Musharraf to became the COAS. The college is right on the Mall itself, opposite the front gate of Aitchison College, and contary to the news reports, is not a high security area. It has a grill seperating it from the main road and the enterance to the college is from a side lane that also leads into the GOR and that also remains open for normal traffic and never is blocked or barricaded.

I have passed the NWC on many ocassions and the front gate to the college was always open and there were usually one or two security guards on duty. The distance from the main the main gate to the main building is less than 100 meters. From early reports, it seems that attackers blew themselves in the parking lot of the NWC, which meant the primary and secondary explosions occured near the front and the side of the building.

There are actually three gates leading into the NWC; the two gates on the front, shown mangled in the media footage, open into the NWC turn into a U shaped drive way. The main entry and exist point remains the gate on the side lane. It would seem that one suicide bomber exploded to clear the gate, from the Mall side of the building, and then the second drove in and exploded himself also. Since the front the building is at the bottom of the U, he could not make the turn and hence detonated himself in the parking lot, which would be the right side of the U.

The NWC is housed in an old house and thus, has added security which is not in-built and thus, is vulnerable from the Mall Road.