QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A series of bombings killed 115 people across Pakistan on Thursday, including 81 who died in twin blasts on a bustling billiards hall in a Shiite area of the southwestern city of Quetta.
Pakistan's minority Shiite Muslims have increasingly been targeted by radical Sunnis who consider them heretics, and a militant Sunni group claimed responsibility for Thursday's deadliest attack — sending a suicide bomber into the packed pool hall and then detonating a car bomb five minutes later.
It was one of the deadliest days in recent years for a country that is no stranger to violence from radical Islamists, militant separatists and criminal gangs.
Violence has been especially intense in southwest Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital and the country's largest concentration of Shiites live. Many are ethnic Hazara who migrated from neighboring Afghanistan.
The billiards hall targeted Thursday was located in an area dominated by the minority sect. In addition to the 81 dead, more than 120 people were wounded in the double bombing, said police officer Zubair Mehmood. The dead included police officers, journalists and rescue workers who responded to the initial explosion.
Ghulam Abbas, a Shiite who lives about 150 yard (meters) from the billiards hall, said he was at home with his family when the first blast occurred. He was trying to decide whether to head to the scene when the second bomb went off.
"The second blast was a deafening one, and I fell down," he said. "I could hear cries and minutes later I saw ambulances taking the injured to the hospital."
Hospitals and a local mortuary were overwhelmed as the dead and wounded arrived throughout the evening. Weeping relatives gathered outside the emergency room at Quetta's Civil Hospital. Inside the morgue, bodies were laid out on the floor.
The bombs severely damaged the three-story building where the pool hall was located and set it on fire. It also damaged nearby shops, homes and offices.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with strong ties to the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Hazara Shiites, who migrated from Afghanistan more than a century ago, have been the targets of dozens of attacks by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta over the past year, but Thursday's was by far the bloodiest.
Human Rights Watch sharply criticized the Pakistani government for not doing enough to crack down on the killings and protect the country's vulnerable Shiite community. It said more than 400 Shiites were killed in targeted attacks in Pakistan in 2012, including over 120 in Baluchistan.
"2012 was the bloodiest year for Pakistan's Shia community in living memory and if this latest attack is any indication, 2013 has started on an even more dismal note," said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.
"As Shia community members continue to be slaughtered in cold blood, the callousness and indifference of authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies," Hasan said. "Pakistan's tolerance for religious extremists is not just destroying lives and alienating entire communities, it is destroying Pakistani society across the board."
Pakistan's intelligence agencies helped nurture Sunni militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in the 1980s, to counter a perceived threat from neighboring Iran, which is mostly Shiite. Pakistan banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2001, but the group continues to operate fairly freely.
Earlier Thursday, a bomb targeting paramilitary soldiers in a commercial area in Quetta killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 others.
The bomb was concealed in a bag and placed near a vehicle carrying paramilitary soldiers, said Akbar Hussain Durrani, the provincial interior secretary. The bag was spotted by a local resident, but before the soldiers could react, it was detonated by remote control.
The United Baluch Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack in calls to local journalists. Pakistan has faced a violent insurgency in Baluchistan for years from nationalists who demand greater autonomy and a larger share of the country's natural resources.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a bomb in a crowded Sunni mosque in the northwest city of Mingora killed 22 people and wounded more than 70, said senior police officer Akhtar Hayyat.
No group claimed responsibility for that attack, but suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban, which has waged a bloody insurgency against the government in the Swat Valley, where Mingora is located, and other parts of the northwest.
Pakistan is also home to many enemies of the U.S. who Washington has frequently targeted with drone attacks. A U.S. missile strike in the northwest tribal region Thursday killed five suspected militants in the seventh such attack in two weeks, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The recent spate of strikes has been one of the most intense in the past two years, a period in which political tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan led to a reduced number of attacks compared to 2010, when they were at their most frequent.
It's unclear whether the current uptick has been caused by particularly valuable intelligence obtained by the CIA, or whether the warming of relations between the two countries has made strikes less sensitive. Protests by the government and Islamic hard-liners have been noticeably muted.
The strike on Thursday occurred in a village near Mir Ali, one of the main towns in the North Waziristan tribal area, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
January 10, 2013
Blasts in Pakistan Kill Scores and Stir Fears on Elections
By DECLAN WALSH
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Bomb blasts in two Pakistani cities killed at least 115 people on Thursday and wounded more than 270, offering harrowing evidence of how the country’s myriad internal conflicts could destabilize it as elections approach.
Waheed Khan/European Pressphoto AgencyPeople inspect the scene of a bomb blast in the southwestern city of Quetta, where the worst violence occurred.
The worst violence occurred in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two explosions a few minutes apart in the evening ripped through a snooker hall in a neighborhood dominated by ethnic Hazara Shiites, killing at least 81 people and wounding more than 170, the police said.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the hall, and a second attacker then blew up his vehicle outside the club as police officers and journalists arrived, a senior police officer, Mir Zubair Mehmood, told reporters. Five police officers and one camera operator were killed in the second explosion. Hospitals were overwhelmed as casualties arrived through the evening.
Hazara leaders said it was the worst sectarian attack in Quetta since attacks on their community started about 14 years ago.
Quetta is no stranger to sectarian, nationalist or Islamist violence. Most violence against Shiites there has been directed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with strong ties to the Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the snooker hall attack. Snooker is a variation of billiards.
An ethnic Baluch separatist group claimed responsibility for another bombing earlier on Thursday, aimed at paramilitary soldiers in a commercial part of Quetta, which killed 12 people.
The Hazara, minority Shiites who migrated from Afghanistan more than a century ago, have been the target of dozens of attacks from sectarian death squads led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta over the past year, but the snooker hall bombing was by far the bloodiest.
Human rights activists said the police and the security forces failed to protect the vulnerable community. “The callousness and indifference of the authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.
The other focus of violence on Thursday was the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan, where an explosion at a religious seminary killed at least 22 people and wounded an additional 60. It was not clear why the seminary, run by the Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat, was a target.
Initial reports said a gas leak had caused the explosion, but police and hospital officials later said that there was clear evidence of a bomb.
Doctors at a hospital in Saidu Sharif, near the site, said blast victims were being treated for wounds caused by ball bearings, which are sometimes packed into suicide bombs to make them more deadly.
“There was a smell of explosives,” Muhammad Iqbal, a senior doctor, said by telephone.
Islamist violence in Swat drew international condemnation in October after Taliban gunmen shot a teenage girl and education activist, Malala Yousafzai. The episode highlighted how Islamist fighters were slowly returning to the valley three years after a Pakistani military operation drove them away.
The violence underscores the fragility of state authority in parts of Pakistan as the country prepares for a general election that is scheduled to take place before June. Many Pakistanis worry that instability could cause the elections to be postponed.
Frustration about the violence among the Pakistani public has been stoked by anger toward the United States, which continued to press its campaign of drone strikes against militant targets in the tribal belt on Thursday.
A C.I.A.-directed missile strike on a compound in North Waziristan killed five people, Pakistani officials said. It was the seventh such attack in two weeks.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/world/asia/pakistan-blast-quetta-swat-valley-elections.html?_r=0
January 11, 2013
Quetta blasts leave 70 people dead, 120 others injured
DAWN.COM | 9 hours ago
Pakistani security officials examine the site of a bomb attack in Quetta on January 10, 2013. – Photo by AFPQUETTA: Four bomb explosions took place in the provincial capital on late Thurday, leaving at least 70 people dead and 120 others injured, DawnNews reported.
Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a crowded snooker club, a senior police officer said.
The first suicide bomber detonated his device inside the club, then about 10 minutes later another attacker in a car outside the building blew himself up as police, media workers and rescue teams rushed to the site, a police officer told AFP.
Eight of the dead are reported to be police officials. A cameraman from a private television channel was also killed, along with four Edhi workers.
Two more explosions took place near Airport road, according to reports.
The injured have been rushed to local hospitals and are said to be in critical condition. Police said the bombings disrupted power supplies and plunged the area into darkness.
The attacks happened in a predominately Shia neighbourhood and banned sectarian group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility, Reuters reported.
The Hazara Democratic Party announced three days of mourning in response to the attacks.
Earlier on in the day, 12 people were killed after a blast that took place near Quetta’s Bacha Khan chowk.
http://dawn.com/2013/01/10/four-explosions-in-quetta-10-people-injured/
http://dawn.com/2013/01/11/two-victims-in-us-school-shooting-sheriffs-office/
Deadly Day In Pakistan: Dozens Killed In Multiple Blasts In Quetta
by KRISHNADEV CALAMUR
January 10, 2013 4:39 PM
Pakistani police officers and residents gather at the site of a bomb blast that targeted paramilitary soldiers in a commercial area in the city of Quetta, killing 11 people. Later in the day, twin blasts at a snooker club in the city killed at least 80 people.Back-to-back bomb blasts in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Thursday have claimed the lives of at least 80 people.
"The death toll has risen to 81 so far," Mir Zubair Mehmood, a senior police official, said at a news conference. He said 121 people were wounded. His comments were reported by the privately owned Geo TV.
Hamid Shakil, the deputy inspector general of police for the city, told the news channel that a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a snooker club. Ten minutes later, there was a second explosion, he said, that claimed the lives of people who had rushed in after the first blast. The dead include police personnel, journalists and rescue workers, Geo TV reported.
The BBC reports that the area is predominantly Shiite Muslim; Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni extremist group, claimed responsibility. A spokesman for the group said the second explosion was caused by a car bomb.
The twin blasts followed an explosion in a market area of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, earlier in the day. Eleven people were killed in that blast; 27 were wounded. The Associated Press reported that the United Baluch Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibility.
Here's more from the BBC about the backdrop to the blasts:
Balochistan is plagued by both a separatist rebellion and sectarian infighting between Sunnis and Shias.
The Taliban and armed groups that support them also carry out attacks in the province, particularly in areas near the Afghan border. Pakistan's military has been engaged in a long-running battle against those militant groups.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/10/169075644/deadly-day-in-pakistan-dozens-killed-in-multiple-blasts-in-quetta
Pakistan bomb blasts kill 115
The Associated Press Posted: Jan 10, 2013 1:47 PM ET Last Updated: Jan 10, 2013 5:25 PM ET
An injured man lies in a hospital after the second bomb blast in Quetta on Thursday. Twin explosions in different parts of the city, including one outside of a pool hall, killed dozens of people. (Naseer Ahmed/Reuters)A series of bombings in different parts of Pakistan killed 103 people on Thursday, including 69 who died in a sectarian attack on a bustling billiard hall in the southwest city of Quetta, officials said.
The blasts punctuated one of the deadliest days in recent years in Pakistan, where the government faces a bloody insurgency by Taliban militants in the northwest and Baluch militants in the southwest.
The country is also home to many enemies of the U.S. that Washington has frequently targeted with drone attacks. A U.S. missile strike Thursday killed five suspected militants in the seventh such attack in two weeks, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The billiard hall in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, was hit by twin blasts about 10 minutes apart on Thursday night, killing 81 people and wounding more 120 others, said senior police officer Hamid Shakeel.
Pakistani security officials examine the site of a bomb attack in Quetta on Thursday that killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 others. (Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
The billiard hall was located in an area dominated by Shia Muslims, and most of the dead and wounded were from the minority sect, said another police officer, Mohammed Murtaza. Many of the people who rushed to the scene after the first blast and were hit by the second bomb, which caused the roof of the building to collapse, he said.
Police officers, journalists and rescue workers who responded to the initial explosion were also among the dead, police said.
The sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack to local journalists. One of the group's spokesmen, Bakar Saddiq, said the first blast was carried out by a suicide bomber and the second was a bomb planted in a car and detonated by remote control.
Attack in commercial area
Radical Sunnis groups often target Pakistan's Shia minority, whom they believe hold heretical views and are not true Muslims.
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister, John Baird, issued a strong condemnation.
"This type of violent extremism is entirely despicable," he said in a statement. "It is a stark reminder that the greatest threat to Pakistan is terrorist entities operating within its borders."
Earlier in the day, a bomb targeting paramilitary soldiers in a commercial area in Quetta killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 others, said Shakeel, the senior police officer.
The United Baluch Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attack on the soldiers in calls to local journalists.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, a bomb in a crowded Sunni mosque in the northwest city of Mingora killed 22 people and wounded more than 70, said senior police officer Akhtar Hayyat.
Pakistani security officials examine the site of a bomb attack in Quetta on Thursday that killed 12 people and wounded more than 40 others. (Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/01/10/pakistan.html