Bomb, gun attacks kill dozens in three cities
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — At least 40 people were killed and nearly 100 wounded Friday in four separate bomb and gun attacks in three major Pakistani cities, officials said.
A suicide bomber was involved in the first car bombing near the office of the provincial police chief in the southwestern city of Quetta that killed at least 12 people and wounded 20. There were conflicting claims of responsibility for this attack from different extremist groups.
Hours later twin bombings, minutes apart, hit a crowded market in a Shiitedominated city in Parachinar, the main city in the Kurram tribal region and killed 24 people, mostly minority Shiite Muslims, according to government administrator Zahid Hussain.
Friday evening, gunmen in the port city of Karachi attacked police officers at a roadside restaurant and killed four of them before fleeing, according to senior police officer Asif Ahmed.
The bomb and gun attacks come a few days before the Muslim holiday of Eid-alFitr, which ends the holy month of Ramadan. TV footage showed panicked people rushing to safety following the Parachinar market bombings.
Parachinar is located about 300 kilometres southwest of Peshawar.
Friday’s car bombing in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, was powerful enough that it was heard across the city, shattering windows on nearby buildings, said police spokesperson Shahzada Farhat.
Hours after the attack, Jamaat-ulAhrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility. Asad Mansoor, the militants’ spokesperson, vowed more such attacks as part of the extremist group’s campaign aimed at imposing Islamic laws in the country.
Later Friday, the Islamic State group said in a competing claim that it was behind the attack, adding that one of its followers targeted the police post in Quetta, detonating his suicide belt there. It also released a photograph of the alleged attacker, identified as Abu Othman alKhorasani.
The competing claims could not be reconciled.
Anwarul Haq Kakar, a spokesperson for the provincial government, blamed neighbouring India for the blast but offered no evidence to back up the allegation.
Pakistan and India routinely trade charges of interference and inciting attacks on one another’s soil.
Baluchistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists and separatists, who want a bigger share of the regional resources or outright independence.