ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A bomb exploded in the back garden of an Italian restaurant crowded with dining foreigners in Pakistan's capital Saturday evening, killing a Turkish woman and wounding 11 others including a Canadian, police said.
Personnel from the U.S. and British embassies were also among the injured. It appeared to be the first attack targeting foreigners in a recent wave of violence in Pakistan.
Officials said the bomb was planted in the garden or thrown over a nearby wall of the Luna Caprese restaurant, a popular socializing spot for expatriates in Islamabad.
Pakistani Interior Secretary Kamal Shah confirmed the Turkish woman's death. A police officer at the scene initially told reporters that two people had died, but Shah and the city police chief later said there was only one fatality.
Nearby at Islamabad's Polyclinic, a list of victims was posted in the reception area. Five U.S. citizens were listed as undergoing surgery. It said one Japanese, one Canadian, one Briton and three Pakistanis were wounded.
Foreigners crowded around the list; some burst into tears.
The blast rang out across downtown Islamabad around 8:45 p.m. local time. Fire engines and police raced to the scene, which was littered with blood and debris. A man's shoe lay in a pile of rubble.
Local television footage showed a wounded man, looking dazed, rushing past the camera with blood streaming from his forehead.
After inspecting the destruction, city police chief Shahid Nadeem Baloch told reporters that 11 people were wounded: eight foreigners and three Pakistanis -- a couple dining and a waiter. He gave no further details of their identities.
"There is a crater in the ground which suggests that it was a planted bomb, but we need to investigate further,'' Baloch said.
Shah said a bomb could have been thrown over the wall.
"There were U.S. Embassy personnel among the injured. They are receiving medical treatment and their families are being notified,'' embassy spokeswoman Kay Mayfield said. She was unable to confirm the number of personnel injured and their nationalities.
The British Foreign Office reported that a staff member from the British High Commission had been "lightly injured'' in the blast. The man was being treated in a hospital, a spokesman for the Foreign Office said.
The restaurant was crowded with a group of Americans and other foreign nationals Saturday when the blast went off, said restaurant employee Haji Mal, who was wounded in the shoulder.
"I was working in the kitchen when the blast took place on the lawn. Something hit me on the shoulder,'' Mal said.
Zahid Janjua, a student at the city's International Islamic University, was dining nearby at another restaurant. He helped bring victims to waiting ambulances, staining his clothes with their blood.
"It was chaos. Broken tables and chairs lay scattered across the lawn. There were eight or nine people lying injured and crying for help,'' he said.
The bomb struck two days before Pakistan's new parliament was set to convene Monday. On Tuesday, two suicide bombings killed 24 people and wounded more than 200 in the eastern city of Lahore.
