KARACHI — An explosion ripped through a Shi’ite mosque in southern Pakistan during weekly prayers Friday, killing 55 people and wounding at least 59 in an apparent suicide bombing, police said.
The bombing in Shikarpur, about 300 miles north of Karachi, was the country’s worst sectarian attack in months. It offered further proof that extremists are spreading deep into Sindh province, which had previously escaped the worst of Pakistan’s violence.
Television images from the scene showed bloodied worshipers being carried from the mosque in the city’s Lakhi Dar district.
The attack appeared to have been carried out by a suicide bomber, said Abdul Quddus, a police officer in Shikarpur.
Jundullah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, said it was responsible for the attack.
Related: Israel Framed CIA in Backing Jundallah Terrorists
That's very interesting.
“Our target was the Shi’ite community,” Fahad Marwat, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters. “They are our enemies.”
Although sectarian violence has risen across Pakistan in recent years, such attacks have been relatively rare in Sindh, which has a long tradition of tolerance among religious groups.
Hmmmmm!
But that harmony has come under threat with a recent expansion of sectarian groups that use mosques and seminaries to spread hatred of Shi’ites. One of the most prominent such groups, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, was banned by the Pakistani government in 2012.
In a statement, former president Asif Ali Zardari, who comes from Sindh province, said he was “shocked and grieved beyond measure” by the bombing.
Although leaders in Sindh openly acknowledge the growing threat of sectarianism, they seem helpless to stop its expansion, drawing angry criticism from Shi’ite groups.
“It seems like the killing of Shi’ites makes no difference to them,” said Ali Hussain Naqvi, a senior official with Majlis Wahdat-al-Muslimeen, a Shi’ite political party that staged street protests across the province after the bombing.
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Seeing as the school attack was a complete hoax, who knows what happened?
"Pakistan military says its airstrikes kill 76 militants" Associated Press January 28, 2015
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani military jets struck suspected militant hideouts Tuesday near the Afghan border, killing 76 militants, the army said.
Two rounds of airstrikes targeted the suspected militants in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, which has long been a safe haven for local and foreign extremists carrying out attacks.
Some foreigners were among those killed while six militant hideouts, an ammunition dump, and seven explosives-laden vehicles also were destroyed in the strikes, Pakistani army officials said.
Journalists are barred from working in Pakistan’s tribal regions, making it impossible to independently verify the military’s claims. Civilians have been killed in previous strikes and the ongoing military offensive there has seen thousands flee for nearby cities. US drone strikes also target suspected militants there.
The army launched its offensive in North Waziristan last June after terrorists attacked the country’s largest airport, in Karachi.
The offensive went into overdrive after militants attacked an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December, killing 150 people, mostly children.
It was used to justify this and executions after military tribunals.
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I thought the war was over, but take a look....
Indian villager looks from hole in the wall of a building allegedly damaged by shelling from the Pakistani side of the disputed Kashmir border, at Arnia village, about 45 KM from Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, India. According to local sources in a major ceasefire violation by Pakistani Rangers three civilians were wounded on the Indian side of the disputed India-Pakistan Kashmir border when Pakistani troops allegedly fired mortar shells at border posts and villages (Jaipal Singh/EPA)."
What started it all:
"Group fails in bid to erect bust of Gandhi assassin" Washington Post January 31, 2015
NEW DELHI — For several weeks, a small Hindu fringe group in India has been attracting attention around the world because of its plans to erect a bust in honor of Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mohandas ‘‘Mahatma’’ Gandhi in 1948.
Organizers had chosen Friday, the 67th anniversary of the freedom fighter’s death, as the big day.
Well, WaPo has made it clear how they feel about Hindu Nazis.
They had a bust of Godse ready to go — and had even conducted a purification ritual at the temple spot in Meerut, 43 miles northeast of New Delhi. They demanded that Friday be declared a ‘‘day of courage’’ across India, to mark what they regard as Godse’s brave act.
But on Friday, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha said they were prohibited from leaving their office to implement the plan. Police, fearing that the move could prompt community tension, also sealed the site with ropes and stuck a prohibitory notice on the wall that barred any installation activity.
The group considers Godse a patriot because he killed the man they hold responsible for the country’s violent partition into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
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That splits my heart in two.
