By Mubasher Bukhari
LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb attack on a police intelligence unit in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore killed at least eight people and wounded 45 on Monday during the morning rush hour, officials said.
The attack outside a federal police office bore all the hallmarks of an operation by al Qaeda-backed Pakistani Taliban militants seeking to topple the government.
"According to initial reports, terrorists came in a car and exploded," provincial police chief Tariq Saleem Dogar told reporters. The violence may be a psychological setback for Pakistani authorities, who have made recent gains against home-grown militants and won praise from ally Washington after capturing high-profile Afghan Taliban figures.
"So far there are eight people dead and 45 wounded. There are still people trapped under the rubble of the security building targeted," city police chief Pervez Rathore told reporters.
A doctor at the hospital treating victims said the dead included a woman and a child.
The blast left a huge crater in the road outside the office of the main police investigation agency, the Federal Investigation Agency, which was severely damaged.
The agency has been attacked at least twice before in Lahore.
Television showed pictures of a man covered in blood trapped in a car and passers-by trying to help him out.
(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Robert Birsel and Ron Popeski)
