ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least 65 people were killed after a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite rally in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta on Friday.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. A series of attacks in recent days by the Sunni militant group on Shiite Muslims, a minority sect in Pakistan, appear intended to further destabilize the government by fomenting sectarian tensions at a time when it is struggling to cope with devastating floods.
A triple bombing Wednesday by the Pakistani Taliban in Lahore killed more than 35 people, and earlier Friday, a suicide attack on a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect killed at least one person and wounded several others in the northwest Pakistani town of Mardan. The Associated press reported Saturday that the death toll in Quetta on Friday rose to 65 from 40 overnight as people died in the hospital.
Over the past month, flood damages have overshadowed the Pakistani government's battle against the militants. Floods have left more than 1,600 people dead and seven million homeless. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said this week that Pakistan had suffered economic losses of more than $40 billion from the deluge. The government expects damage from the floods its expected to slow the country's GDP growth by two percentage points this year to 2.5%.
U.S. officials have said they feared militants would exploit the flood crisis to intensify attacks.
"We strongly condemn the recent barbaric attacks on religious processions in Lahore and Quetta and on a place of worship in Mardan," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Friday.
The U.S. this week designated the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as a terrorist group, and U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against its leader.
The Quetta blast hit a procession for the annual Quds Day, on which pro-Palestinian demonstrations are held in a number countries.
Any anti-Israel common ground appeared to have been outweighed by the Pakistani Taliban's rivalry with the Shiite organizers of the Quetta rally.
A Pakistani Taliban commander said one of his suicide bombers staged the attack, the Associated Press reported.
About 150 people were injured and some remained in critical condition after the bombing Friday in Quetta, police official Mohammed Sultan said, according to the AP.
In Conflict
Some of the Islamic divides in Pakistan's sectarian violence:
- Sunnis, who follow the world's largest branch of Islam, are the politically dominant majority in Pakistan. The Pakistani Taliban militant group, along with its al Qaeda allies, are followers of a brand of hard-line Sunni Islam that considers Shiites, like those targeted Friday, to be heretics.
- Shiites, the biggest minority group in Pakistan, have clashed with the country's Sunnis over issues of political marginalization as well as longstanding religious differences.
- Ahmadis, who believe the final prophet was a 19th century cleric, not Muhammad, have been declared by Pakistan to be infidels.
- Sufis, practitioners of a mystical Islamic tradition, are considered heretics by extremists. A Sufi temple in Lahore was hit in a terrorist attack in July.
Muhammad Jan, who has a roadside kiosk near the site of the blast, said he heard "a big bang and saw burning motorcycles and clouds of black thick smoke billowing through the streets."
Some protesters started firing into the air and set fire to vehicles after the blast. Shiite leader Allama Abbas Kumaili appealed to protesters to remain peaceful.
Bomb attacks in Pakistani cities have jumped in the past year. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed many of the attacks, saying they were carried out in retaliation for the Pakistani military's U.S.-backed war against them in their strongholds near Afghanistan.
Alongside a campaign of attacks on military targets, the Pakistani Taliban has also attacked minority sects.
Attacks on Shiites in the past were largely carried out by groups such as Sipah-e-Sahaba, which is based in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province. After Sipah-e-Sahaba was banned in 2002, many of its cadres escaped to the border areas with Afghanistan, where they joined with Pashtun militants who later became the Pakistani Taliban.
The Lahore attack on Wednesday was intended to avenge the death of the former leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba, Maulana Ali Shair Haidree, who was killed last August by what the Pakistani Taliban claimed were Shiite extremists.
—Tom Wright
contributed to this article.
