Gunmen shot dead 26 Pakistani Shiite Muslim pilgrims travelling to
Iran on Tuesday, the deadliest attack on the minority community in
Pakistan for more than a year, officials said.
In a brutal
assault, gunmen ordered pilgrims off their bus, lined them up and
assassinated them in a hail of gunfire in Mastung, a district 50
kilometres (30 miles) south of Quetta, the capital of the southwest
Baluchistan province.
An hour after the first attack,
unidentified gunmen killed another three Shiites on the outskirts of
Quetta whom police said were relatives of victims of the first incident
en route to collect their bodies.
"The attackers stopped the bus
and forced the pilgrims to get off, lined them up and then opened
fire," local deputy commissioner Saeed Imrani told AFP, referring to
the first attack.
"The death toll has risen to 26. At least six
people were wounded, four of them are in a critical condition," he
added, after earlier saying 20 died.
Referring to the second
incident, Hamid Shakil, a senior police officer in Quetta, told AFP by
telephone: "Armed men ambushed their car. Three of them were killed and
one was wounded. They were going to take the dead bodies."
Much
of Pakistan, a key US ally in the war on Al-Qaeda and the 10-year fight
against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan, suffers from near
daily Islamist militant violence.
Baluchistan has increasingly
become a flashpoint for sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority
Sunni Muslims and minority Shiites.
"It is an emergency-like
situation. We are taking the dead and injured to hospitals. Twenty-six
pilgrims were killed and six wounded," Shah Nawaz, another government
official told private TV channel Geo.
The attack, confirmed as
sectarian in nature by Pakistani officials, was the deadliest on
Shiites in Pakistan since September 4, 2010 when a suicide bomber
killed at least 57 people at a Shiite rally in Quetta.
The bus
driver, Khushal Khan, recounted harrowing details to reporters for two
Pakistani TV channels who quickly reached the scene.
"There was
no security on our bus. Eight to 10 attackers armed with Kalashnikovs
and rocket launchers stopped the bus and forced all the passengers to
get off," he said in comments broadcast by Geo television.
"Forty-five passengers were travelling. Some of them managed to escape. I also managed to escape," he said.
"The attackers then fled in their vehicle."
Pakistan
private TV channel Express News broadcast footage of dead bodies lying
in a pool of blood alongside discarded caps and shoes. Ambulances and
rescue workers were shown recovering bodies on stretchers.
Shiite Muslims account for around a fifth of the country's 167 million population, which is dominated by Sunnis.
Oil
and gas-rich, Baluchistan borders Afghanistan as well as Iran. It is
also experiencing a surge in violence linked to separatists fighting
for political autonomy and a greater share of profits, and Taliban
militants.
On September 7, Taliban suicide bombers killed 27
people in Quetta, targeting the deputy chief of the Frontier Corps
paramilitary after troops arrested an alleged senior Al-Qaeda leader in
the Quetta suburbs.
One bomb detonated in a car outside Farrukh
Shahzad's home, and the second attacker blew himself up inside the
house, killing the deputy chief's wife and injuring him and at least
one of his children.
Two days earlier, the military announced
that Younis al-Mauritani had been arrested on suspicion of planning
attacks on the United States, Europe and Australia, along with two
other high-ranking operatives.
The worst Islamist militant
violence in Pakistan is concentrated in the northwest, where Taliban
gunmen earlier Tuesday stormed a checkpoint, killing one soldier and
sparking clashes in which up to 20 militants died.
Officials said
five soldiers and five civilians were also wounded after the militants
attacked the Dabori post manned by paramilitary troops in the
semi-autonomous tribal district of Orakzai.
Orakzai is one of
seven districts in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt which the United
States has described as the most dangerous region in the world and a
global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.
The Pakistani military last year
launched an operation against militants in Orakzai, which for two years
was dominated by the Pakistani Taliban, blamed for most of the suicide
and bomb attacks that routinely hit the country. AFP
