Deadly Blast At Danish Embassy In Pakistan

Officials say a huge explosion near the Danish embassy in Pakistan's capital has killed at least four people, wounded several more and badly damaged the embassy.

CBS News' Farhan Bokhari reports that Asmatullah Marwat, an emergency official with Islamabad's ambulance service, put the death toll at eight, and said one of those killed appeared to be a Westerner.

"My relief staff have taken away eight bodies including one who looked like a foreign man," he told CBS News.

However, according to other official sources, four people were killed in the blast.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the bomb had killed an embassy worker and injured three others. He said the explosion killed a Pakistani cleaner and seriously injured a handyman at the embassy. Two office workers were also injured.

Moeller said the Danish government did not know who was behind the blast but that they were in touch with Pakistani officials.

An Associated Press correspondent at the scene said people were in a state of panic after the explosion rocked Islamabad at around 1 p.m. Monday.

Police officer Jamal Khan said earlier that at least three people were dead and eight others wounded.

Pakistani state television also said at least eight people had died in the blast, and showed extensive damage in the area surrounding the embassy.

Shattered glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicle littered the area.

Interior Ministry secretary Kamal Shah confirmed there had been a blast outside the embassy but had no further details.

Footage from the scene showed dozens of cars damaged and large crater in the ground. Rescue workers dragged away at least one bloodied person, covering his torso with an orange blanket.

Denmark has faced threats at its embassies following the reprinting in Danish newspapers of a caricature depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims generally consider depicting the prophet to be sacrilegious.

Bokhari reports that Pakistani intelligence services were also investigating possible links between the bomb blast and members of hard line militant groups operating in the remote region along the country's border with Afghanistan.

A senior Pakistani security official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity, said 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, for 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 military and paramilitary troops pitted against 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.