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 The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater more than three feet deep in the road in front of the embassy. Shattered glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles littered the area. A plume of smoke rose above the scene as people, some bloodied, ran back and forth in a state of panic.
The explosion appeared to be a car bomb, police officer Muhammad Ashraf said. Someone parked a car in front of the embassy and it exploded at around 1 p.m, he said.
Officials at two hospitals reported at least five people -- including two policemen
-- were killed and 32 wounded in the blast.
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said the explosion killed a male Pakistani custodian at the embassy and seriously injured a handyman. Two office workers were also injured, Moeller said.
He condemned the attack as "totally unacceptable."
"It is terrible that terrorists do this. The embassy is there to have a cooperation between the Pakistani population and Denmark, and that means they are destroying that," Moeller told Denmark's TV2 News channel.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri recently called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the publication of caricatures in Danish newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.
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 and Islamic militants had warned of reprisals.
In April, Danish intelligence officials warned of an "aggravated" terror threat against Denmark because of the cartoon. The warning specifically singled Pakistan, along with North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors al-Qaida messages, said the bombing was likely the work of the terror group or one of its affiliates.
He said al-Qaida laid out an extensive justification for attacks against Danish diplomatic facilities and personnel in a video last August, and repeated its threat earlier this year.
"I urge and incite every Muslim who can harm Denmark to do so in support of the Prophet, God's peace and prayers be upon him, and in defense of his honorable stature," IntelCenter quoted al-Zawahri as saying in an April 21 video.
Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir pledged Pakistan would do all it could to safeguard foreign diplomatic missions.
"I think the Pakistani nation feels very ashamed today on incidents such as these," he said.
It was the second targeting of foreigners in less than three months in the usually tranquil Pakistani capital. A bombing in March at a restaurant in Islamabad that killed a Turkish aid worker and wounded at least 12 others including four FBI personnel.
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 "I was with a friend passing through a nearby street then we heard a big bang," said witness Muhammad Akhtar. "Then we saw smoke and people running in a frenzy. We shifted at least eight or nine injured to hospitals. They all have got serious injuries. They were soaked in blood."
Footage from the scene showed rescue workers dragging away a bloodied person, covering his torso with a blanket.
Sirens wailed as ambulances took the wounded from the scene. One group of rescuers carried away what appeared to be the upper half of a man's body. Pieces of metal and glass were scattered at least 200 yards from the blast site.
An exterior wall of the embassy collapsed and its metal gate was blown inward but the embassy building itself remained intact. The Danish flag and the EU flag were blown off their staffs and the windows of the embassy were blown out.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry closed its embassy a few hundred yards from the Danish mission. It suffered "glass breakage" from the blast, a ministry statement said.
The office of a Pakistani development organization opposite the embassy was badly damaged, its roof partially collapsed.
Anjum Masood, a field operations manager for the U.N.-funded group, Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment, said dozens of its 100 employees were wounded, mostly because of flying glass. His own left hand was bandaged.
Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants have launched a wave of bombings in Pakistan over the past year, mostly targeting security forces.
There had been a relative lull in violence since a new civilian government took power two months ago and began peace talks with the Taliban based along the Afghan frontier.
Ruling party spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the government needed to investigate who was behind the bombing before determining if it would affect the dialogue.
"We would not like our peace efforts to be derailed," he said.
In April, Denmark briefly evacuated staff from its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan because of terror threats related to the Muhammad drawings. Foreign Minister Moeller then suggested Danish embassies in other locations also could be forced to relocate their staff following a warning in March by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
[Associated
Press; By ASIF SHAHZAD]
Associated Press writer Stephen Graham contributed to this report.
Copyright 2008 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
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