Suicide bombers target Pakistan church leaving nine people dead
● More than 50 injured in attack ● IS group claims responsibility
Two suicide bombers have attacked a church in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing nine people and wounding more than 50 others.
The Islamic State group have claimed responsibility for yesterday’ s attack.
One of the suicide bombers was shot dead outside Bethel Memorial Methodist Church.
The other assailant made it into the church’s entrance hall as Sunday services opened, with hundreds of worshippers attending ahead of Christmas.
The gunman opened fire at church goers before detonating his explosive vest.
Three women were among those killed in the attack. Another four women and two children were among those hurt.
Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the south-western Balthe uchistan province, said the attackers had clashed with security forces.
“There were nearly 400 people inside the church, but the attackers couldn’t get inside the services,” provincial police chief Moazzam Jah said.
“We killed one of them and the other one exploded himself after police wounded him.”
Baluchistan police chief Moazzam Ansari praised the response of security guards protecting the church, saying the attacker who made it inside was wounded and unable to reach the main building.
“Otherwise the loss of lives could have been much higher,” Mr Ansari told reporters.
Quetta police chief Abdur Razzaq Cheema said a search was underway for two suspected accomplices who escaped.
Local television showed ambulances and security patrols racing to the scene while women and children were being led out of the church’s main gate.
The ISIS affilliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan said it was behind the attack.
Islamic State group later claimed responsibility for the attack in a post made on the Aamaq news agency – the media wing of the terror group.
The report said two “plungers” from their group had stormed the church, without providing further details.
Wasim Baig, a spokesman for Quetta’s main hospital, confirmed the attack’s toll, updating earlier accounts from officials.
He said three women were among the dead while another four women and two children were among the wounded.
Mr Baig added that 57 people were wounded, of whom seven were in critical condition.
A young girl in a white dress sobbed as she recounted the attack to Geo television, saying many people around her were wounded.
Aqil Anjum, who was shot in his right arm, said he heard a blast in the middle of the service followed by heavy gunfire.
“It was chaos,” Mr Anjum said. “Bullets were hitting people inside the closed hall.” Doz- ens of Christians gathered outside a nearby hospital to protest the lack of security.
Pakistan’s president and other senior officials condemned the attack, along with the country’s Foreign Office, which tweeted the nation’s “resolve against terrorism cannot be deterred by these cowardly acts”.
Quetta is the largest city and provincial capital of Balochistan province.
Christians make up 2 per cent of Pakistan’s population and face persecution from hardline Islamists, who want to see a strict interpretation of Islamic law take precedence in the legal system.
Previous attacks on Christians have included a suicide attack in Lahore that killed at least 14 people in March 2015. There have also been suicide attacks on a church in Peshawar in 2013 that killed more than 80 people.
Attacks by terror groups in the nation are not limited to Christians. Eighteen people were killed in a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine in southwestern Balochistan earlier this month.