DTN News - PAKISTAN SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: Militants Attack Shiites In Peshawar, 15 Killed

Asian Defense News: DTN News - PAKISTAN SECTARIAN VIOLENCE: Militants Attack Shiites In Peshawar, 15 Killed

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AP
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - June 21, 2013: Militants opened fire on a Shiite Muslim mosque where worshippers were gathering for Friday prayers, and then a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside, killing 15 people in the latest attack aimed at the minority sect, police said.

The attack hit the city of Peshawar, which is on the outskirts of Pakistan's tribal area, the main sanctuary for Islamic militants. They have targeted the city with scores of bombings in recent years.

Three militants initiated the attack on the mosque, located inside a Shiite religious school, by firing on a policeman who was standing guard outside, said senior police official Shafiullah Khan. The policeman was critically wounded, Khan said.

The militants then entered the mosque, where one of them detonated his suicide vest. The other two militants escaped, and police have launched a search operation to find them, Khan said. Fifteen people were killed and scores more wounded, he said.

Zawar Hussain, who was inside the mosque when the attackers struck, said their firing set off panic among the roughly 300 worshippers inside. Then came the explosion.

"After the blast, I fell down. People were crying for help," said Hussain. "I saw bodies and badly injured worshippers everywhere."

Local TV video showed blood splattered on the floor and walls of the mosque. Broken glass littered the floor, and there were holes in the walls and ceiling caused by ball bearings packed in with the bomber's explosives to cause maximum damage and casualties. Relatives at a local hospital wailed in grief as rescue workers wheeled in wounded victims, their clothes soaked in blood.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Radical Sunni Muslims who consider Shiites to be heretics have stepped up attacks against the minority sect in Pakistan over the last several years.

On Saturday, a bomb that appeared to be targeting Shiites ripped through a bus carrying female university students in the southwest city of Quetta, killing 14 people. Militants then attacked a hospital where wounded victims were taken, killing more people.

The militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta and could be suspected in Friday's Peshawar attack as well. The group has carried out many of the attacks against Shiites in Pakistan in recent years, especially in Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital.

Although most Sunnis and Shiites live peacefully together in Pakistan, the country has a long history of sectarian attacks by radicals on both sides.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Pakistan became the scene of a proxy war between mostly Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia, with both sides funneling money to sectarian groups that regularly targeted each other.

Most of the attacks in recent years have been by radical Sunnis against Shiites. Last year was one of the most deadly for Shiites in Pakistan's history, according to Human Rights Watch, which said more than 400 Shiites were killed.

This year is shaping up to be even deadlier. Two attacks carried out by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta at the beginning of the year killed nearly 200 people.

The sectarian violence presents a significant challenge to Pakistan's new government, which took power earlier this month under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Human rights activists and members of the Shiite community criticized the last government for failing to do enough to stop the attacks. The new government has promised to do more, but some critics have questioned whether Sharif will follow through. His party has done little to crack down on Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other militant groups in its home province of Punjab in central Pakistan, even though the party controlled the provincial government for the last five years.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AP
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*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Imran Khan Injured After He Falls During Rally In Lahore

Asian Defense News: DTN News - PAKISTAN NEWS: Imran Khan Injured After He Falls During Rally In Lahore

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AFP
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 7, 2013:  Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan was rushed to hospital with head injuries on Tuesday after falling off a lift taking him onto the stage for an election rally, his party said.

Television footage showed Khan, leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI), bleeding from the head as he was carried by aides through the crowd at the event in Pakistan's second largest city Lahore.

The dramatic development came at the end of a day that saw 17 people killed and dozens more wounded in bomb attacks in northwest Pakistan, taking the death toll in the bloody campaign for Saturday's general election past 100.

The poll will mark a democratic milestone in a country ruled for half its history by the military as the first time a civilian government has served a full term and handed over to another through the ballot box.

Khan, who won only one seat in 2002 and boycotted polls in 2008, has led an electric campaign, galvanising the middle class and young people in what he has called a "tsunami" of support that will propel him into office.

The 63-year-old, who has undertaken a punishing schedule of daily rallies, tumbled from a riser along with several of his staff, seemingly after one of them lost their balance.

"Imran Khan fell from a lifter. He has received injuries to his head and he has been taken to hospital," Malik Ishtiaq, a local spokesman for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) told AFP in tears.

Another party spokesman said Khan's injuries were minor.

"Imran Khan is all right. He has been taken to the hospital for first aid. He will be back to address the rally very soon after getting initial treatment," Chaudhry Rizwan told AFP by telephone.

PTI information secretary Shirin Mazari told AFP Khan had fallen from a height of more than seven feet (over two metres).

"He had an injury to his forehead and he is conscious. He is being taken to Shaukat Khanum Hospital," she said, referring to the cancer hospital that Khan set up in honour of his mother.

Hundreds of well wishers and party supporters gathered outside the hospital, chanting "Long Live Imran Khan", an AFP reporter said.

Tuesday's attacks took place in the northwestern town of Hangu, a flashpoint for violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and in the northwestern district of Dir, where Pakistani troops crushed a Taliban-led insurgency in 2009.

The Pakistani Taliban has condemned the polls as un-Islamic and directly threatened the main parties in the outgoing ruling coalition led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and other secular allies.

Twelve people were killed and more than 40 injured at Hangu when a suicide bomber targeted election candidate Syed Janan, said Musarrat Qadeem, information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Janan, who is seeking re-election to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly for the right-wing Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, told AFP he had been wounded on his head and shoulder.

"I was on my election campaign and coming to my vehicle when the bomber blew himself up. I received some injuries but survived. Two of my guards were seriously wounded," Janan said.

Later on Tuesday a roadside bombing killed five people, including the brother of a provincial assembly candidate for the PPP who had gone door to door to canvass for votes in Dir, police said. Seven other people were wounded.

Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the attack in Dir, but denied involvement for the suicide attack in Hangu.

"Our attacks on the PPP, the ANP (Awami National Party) and the MQM (Muttahida Qaumi Movement) will continue," Ehsan told AFP in a telephone call from an unknown location.

The number of people to have died in attacks on politicians and political parties since April 11 has now risen to 109, according to an AFP tally.

On Monday, 23 people were killed at a rally in the tribal district of Kurram, the deadliest single attack on the campaign so far.

Elections have been postponed in three constituencies where candidates have been killed. They are in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, in Pakistan's biggest city of Karachi and in the southern city of Hyderabad.

The national campaign race has been dominated by the centre-right -- Khan and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N.


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*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources AFP
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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