Britain expresses "horror" over Islamabad bombing
MANCHESTER (Reuters) - The government voiced its horror after a suicide truck bomber killed at least 40 people in Islamabad on Saturday and said it would help Pakistan to improve security.
"Our help for the government of Pakistan is obviously on the security side, we have shared interests on the Afghan/Pakistan border because obviously British troops are in danger in Afghanistan," Foreign Secretary David Miliband told BBC News 24.
"We also want to support their economic and social development because in the longer term that is critical to winnowing out the extremists, marginalising the extremists and to make sure that the decent majority in Pakistan turn their face against this violent extremism," he added.
The explosion came hours after new President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, made his first address to parliament a few hundred metres away from the hotel, calling for terrorism to be rooted out.
(Reporting by Keith Weir; Editing by Dominic Evans)
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