Pakistan - Suicide bomber attacks Shiite mosque during Friday prayers - 23 dead / AP cover of a'mat
(26 Feb 2012) On January 10th 2012 a bomb targeting a militia opposed to the Pakistani Taliban exploded in a market close to the Afghan border, killing 25 people in the deadliest blast in the country in several months, officials said. The explosion, likely detonated by remote control, hit vehicles being used by the militia in the Khyber region, according to a local security officer. It also wounded 24 people, said a local government official. The army has supported the formation of anti-Taliban militias in northwest Pakistan, but the insurgents have ruthlessly attacked the groups over the last two years. Many of the country's bloodiest bombings have been against militia members or their families. Islamist militants with links to al-Qaida have carried out hundreds of bombings in Pakistan since 2007, killing many hundreds of soldiers, police, government officials and civilians. The Pakistani army has carried out offensives against the militants in their strongholds in tribally administered regions like Khyber, but the insurgents have proven to be a resilient foe. There have been conflicting reports of peace talks between some insurgent factions and the government in recent months. While the frequency of large-scale attacks outside of the northwest has decreased over the last 18 months, the violence has triggered fears in the West that nuclear-armed Pakistan may be buckling under extremism. The last major bombing was in September 2011 close to the Swat Valley, when a suicide bomber hit a funeral of a tribal elder opposed to the Taliban, killing 31 people. *** On February 17th a suicide attacker on a motorcycle blew himself up in a Pakistani town close to the Afghan border, killing 23 Shiite Muslims and wounding 50 people. A local government official said the bomber struck at a market in the northwestern town of Parachinar, and that many of the 23 dead were shoppers or people with stalls in the market. Wounded people were being treated at the Parachinar District Headquarters hospital. One of those injured in the blast, Sheir Zaman, said he had been out shopping when the blast occurred. "I was looking towards people who were selling mobiles in market. All of sudden an explosion took place, and after the explosion I don't know what happened to me and the other people," he said. A local Taliban commander, Fazal Saeed Haqqani, claimed responsibility for the attack in a call to local journalists. He justified the attack by saying that Shiites had been attacking Sunnis. According to a local government administrator, after the blasts in Parachinar, in the Kurram region, security officials fired on people who took to the streets to protest, killing three of them. Most of the victims of sectarian violence in Kurram have been Shiites. Violence by Sunni extremists against Shiites is common in Pakistan, a Muslim country dominated by Sunnis but home to a sizable Shiite minority. Kurram is the only region along the Afghan border that has a majority of Shiites, and has seen bloody outbreaks of sectarian violence in recent years. Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the Taliban often believe Shiites are infidels and that it is permissible or even praiseworthy to kill them. The emergence of those groups in the country over the last 10 years has added to the frequency and viciousness of attacks against Shiites *** On February 26th Osama bin Laden's former compound was halfway to being demolished. The al-Qaida chief was killed by US commandos last May after having lived in the compound, situated in the northwestern town of Abbottabad, for years with his wives and children. *** Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: / ap_archive Facebook: / aparchives Instagram: / apnews You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
