Blast in Pakistani city of Quetta kills at least 28

At least 28 people were killed and dozens wounded in the south western Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday when a suicide bomber attacked a largely Shi’ite Muslim neighbourhood, police said.

The blast appeared to be the latest in an escalating campaign of gun and bomb attacks by militants on ethnic Hazaras in Quetta because they belong to Pakistan’s Shi’ite minority.

Mir Zubair, Quetta’s police chief, said a suicide bomber riding a bicycle had detonated his explosives when he was stopped at a barrier in the Hazara Town district, a Hazara enclave on the western edge of the city.

“The dead included nine women, a girl and a 14-year-old boy,” Zubair told reporters.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group which has carried out many gun and bomb attacks on Hazaras in Quetta, said it was behind the bombing. A spokesman for the group called the Express News television channel to make the claim.

The group is aligned with the Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, which sees Shi’ites as infidels. – (Reuters)