Car bomb attack kills 19 Shiites in Pakistan
Victims were taking bus on religious pilgrimage to Iran
QUETTA, Pakistan – A car bomb targeting a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed 19 people in southwest Pakistan, officials and eyewitnesses said.
Earlier Sunday, 21 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan’s troubled northwest tribal region, government officials said.
Reports conflicted about whether the car bombing was a suicide attack or the device was detonated remotely.
Pakistan has experienced a spike in killings over the last year by radical Sunni Muslims targeting Shiites, whom they consider heretics. The violence has been especially pronounced in Baluchistan province, where the latest attack occurred.
In addition to the 19 people killed in the bombing in Baluchistan’s Mastung district, 25 others were wounded, many of them critically, said Tufail Ahmed, a local political official. The blast destroyed the bus and damaged a nearby bus also carrying Shiites.
Ahmed and a person who was riding in the second bus, Mohammed Ayan Danish, said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.
The bomber “rammed a small car into the first bus, which contained 43 pilgrims,” said Danish.
But Akbar Durrani, the home secretary in Baluchistan, said the explosion was caused by a car packed with explosives that was parked beside the road and detonated by remote control.
The pilgrims who were targeted were headed to Iran, a majority Shiite country that is a popular religious tourism destination, Ahmed said.
The 21 tribal policemen who were shot dead were found shortly after midnight Sunday in the Jabai area of Frontier Region Peshawar after being notified by one policeman who escaped, said Naveed Akbar Khan, a top political official in the area. Another policeman was found seriously wounded, Khan said.