Suicide bomb rocks Pakistan city of Quetta
A suicide bomber has struck the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing 43 people. It is the second major attack this week in the country, which continues to face problems from last month’s floods.
The bomber attacked a Shi’ite rally in Quetta, which was expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people.
More than 100 people were wounded in the attack.
A hospital spokesman in Quetta said: “There are 24 dead in the Combining Military Hospital and the remaining are in two other hospitals.”
The bomb left vehicles on fire and the wounded lying on the streets, and followed the Taliban’s bomb in Lahore earlier this week, which also struck a Shi’ite procession and killed 33 people.
The Lahore blasts were the first major attack since the flooding disaster began in Pakistan. At the beginning of August, the Taliban said it would suspend attacks in flood-hit areas.
A spokesman for the Taliban’s suicide bomber mentor, Qari Hussain Mehsud, said of the Lahore attack: “It’s revenge for the killings of innocent Sunnis.”
Another suicide attack today in the north west of Pakistan killed one person outside a mosque of the Ahmadi Muslim sect, which Pakistan has declared non-Muslim.
The civilian government in Pakistan is already struggling to cope with the floods and the resurgence in violence represents another major problem.
The attacks also come in the wake of a warning from the United States, which said earlier today that the floods will hinder army offensives against the Taliban.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who is visiting US troops in Afghanistan, said: “Unfortunately the flooding in Pakistan is probably going to delay any operations by the Pakistani army in North Waziristan for some period of time.”