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6 Dead After Pakistan Embassy Blast

A car bomb blast next to Denmark's embassy in Islamabad killed at least six people, wounded dozens and threatened to heighten Western pressure on Pakistan to stop striking peace deals with militants.

The bomb in the Pakistani capital on Monday followed threats by al Qaeda against Denmark over the reprint of a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers. It left a huge crater in the road outside the embassy, wrecked a gate, destroyed nearby vehicles, and badly damaged the office of a nearby U.N.-funded development group.

The bombing was the worst anti-Danish attack since a set of Muhammad drawings first appeared nearly three years ago, but most and possibly all of the dead were believed to be Pakistanis.

The embassy building itself remained standing, though its windows were shattered and its perimeter wall collapsed. Several diplomatic buildings and homes also were damaged.

Sweden and Norway were among foreign missions that immediately closed their offices, and the bombing could prompt embassies and aid agencies to consider evacuating all but essential staff. Officials from U.N. agencies were to meet Tuesday about possibly sending people home.

Pakistani officials were investigating if it was a suicide bombing. Police believe the attacker used fake diplomatic license plates. Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said evidence showed the car was a Toyota Corolla carrying 55 pounds of high explosives.

Rizwan Sheikh, a planning specialist for the U.N.-funded group, Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment, said he was at his desk when he heard the explosion. "Pieces of windows, doors and glass hit me, but thank God I didn't get any injuries," he said.

The six dead included two policemen as well as a cleaner and handyman employed by the embassy. At least 35 people were wounded, officials said.

Denmark's foreign minister said in a televison interview that one of the dead may have held a Danish passport. He did not elaborate.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though suspicion quickly fell on al Qaeda. As recently as April, the terror network's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the Muhammad drawings.

Pakistan's border regions are considered havens for al Qaeda- and Taliban-linked militants believed behind attacks on U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan and a series of blasts in Pakistan in the past year. Monday's blast was the second targeting foreigners in the usually tranquil capital in some three months.

Pakistan's new government, in office for just two months, has been pursuing peace deals with the militants, a shift away from the more heavy-handed, U.S.-backed military tactics employed by President Pervez Musharraf.

Senior police officer Ahmed Latif said the attacker apparently used a fake diplomatic license plate to get the car near the embassy. He said it was most likely a suicide attack.

Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for the tribal regions, said al Qaeda-executed attacks tend to be more lethal than Monday's blast. Radical local clerics could also have inspired the attacker, although if it was a suicide bombing, the plot likely originated from the lawless border regions where al Qaeda and Taliban find sanctuary.

CBS News' Farhan Bokhari reports that Pakistani intelligence services were investigating possible links between the bomb blast and members of hard line militant groups operating in the border region.

A senior Pakistani security official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, said Monday the intelligence services had received information during the past month that a series of new attacks was being planned by militants opposed to a new peace deal between the Pakistani government and Baitullah Mehsud, a powerful militant leader in the border region.

"The attacks are meant to lift the divisions in Mehsud's camp and bring them out in the open," said the security official.

Monday's attack came on the heels of criticism from the West, including the United States, over the peace agreement reached last month with Mehsud. The Pakistani government agreed to release a number of Taliban militants and redeploy its troops around the border region in return for Mehsud's promise to stop attacks on Pakistani military and paramilitary troops.

Defying the pressure from the West, the Pakistani government defended the peace agreement as a necessary step to end more than five years of intense fighting between Pakistani troops and militants linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

"This blast has once again demonstrated that any conciliation towards these militants will not bring peace" a senior Western diplomat told CBS News Monday after the attack. The diplomat spoke on condition that their name be withheld, due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

Even if the attack isn't linked to militants in the tribal regions, the U.S. and the West "will use this again as a pretext or to say look, your policy (on peace deals) is not working," analyst Talat Masood told the Associated Press.

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