The UN has temporarily closed all its offices across Pakistan after a suicide blast killed five people at the World Food Programme compound in central Islamabad.
‘All UN offices in Pakistan have been closed until further notice,’ a spokeswoman said.
Three Pakistanis, one Iraqi national and one other as yet unidentified victim, were killed when a suicide bomber dressed as a paramilitary soldier detonated 8kg of explosives inside the heavily-fortified UN office.
The bomber got into the WFP compound after asking a guard at the gate if he could use a toilet, Interior Minister Rahman Malik told reporters at the scene.
The WFP confirmed in a statement from Rome that three of its staff had died in the blast, with two UN employees still in a critical condition.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility, but the attack comes during an upsurge of suicide bombings in Pakistan as the new Taliban leadership vow to avenge the killing of their commander Baitullah Mehsud in a US missile strike.
Three bomb blasts in the past three weeks in the northwest have killed 28 people, with the Taliban claiming responsibility for one of the blasts and threatening to unleash bigger assaults.
