Suspected Sunni extremists opened fire on Shiite Muslims traveling
through southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 13 people in the
latest apparent sectarian attack to hit the country, police said.
Sunni
militants with ideological and operational links to al-Qaida and the
Taliban have carried out scores of bombings and shootings against
minority Shiites in recent years, but the past couple weeks have been
particularly bloody.
The gunmen who attacked Tuesday were riding
on motorbikes and stopped a bus carrying mostly Shiite Muslims who were
headed to work at a vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta, the
capital of Baluchistan province, said police official Hamid Shakeel.
The
attackers forced the people off the bus, made them stand in a line and
then opened fire, said Shakeel. The dead included 12 Shiites and one
Sunni, he said. Seven people were wounded — five Shiites and two Sunnis.
Local
TV footage showed relatives wailing at the hospital where the dead and
wounded were brought. One relative hugged a wounded man as another
walked by, his clothes soaked with blood.
Shiites blocked the
main highway on the outskirts of Quetta to protest the killings and set
fire to the bus that took the dead and wounded to the hospital.
Sunni
extremists carried out a similar attack on Shiite pilgrims traveling
through Baluchistan about two weeks ago, killing 26 people.
Pakistan is a majority Sunni Muslim state, with around 15 percent Shiite.
Most
Sunnis and Shiites live together peacefully in Pakistan, though
tensions have existed for decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan
became the scene of a proxy war between mostly Shiite Iran and Sunni
Saudi Arabia, with both sides funneling money to sectarian groups that
regularly targeted each other.
The level of sectarian violence
has declined somewhat since then, but attacks continue. In recent
years, Sunni attacks on Shiites have been far more common.
The
groups have been energized by al-Qaida and the Taliban, which are also
Sunni and share the belief that Shiites are infidels and it is
permissible to kill them. The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to
Islam's Prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,
one of the country's most ruthless Sunni militant groups, claimed
responsibility for the attack in Baluchistan two weeks ago. One of its
alleged leaders, Malik Ishaq, was released from prison on bail in July
after being held for 14 years on charges, never proven, of killing
Shiites.
Ishaq was re-arrested about a week ago after making
inflammatory speeches against Shiites in the country. He was not
charged but detained under a public order act, which means he can be
held for three months.
It's not clear whether Ishaq's speeches have been connected to the recent wave of sectarian attacks. AP
