English
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 22 people were killed and 50 wounded when a bomb tore through a marketplace in a Shiite town in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, officials said.
Hours later, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni extremist group, claimed responsibility for the attack in Parachinar, the capital of the Kurram tribal region, which is on the border with Afghanistan.
“It is revenge for the crime of taking sides with Iran and Bashar al-Assad,” an unidentified spokesman for the group said in a message to local news media outlets, referring to the president of Syria, which is in the midst of a civil war. “We warn Shiite parents that unless they stop their children from participating in the war, they should be prepared for more attacks.”
Hundreds of Pakistani Shiites are said to have been recruited by Iran in recent years to defend Mr. Assad’s government. They are part of a fighting unit known as the Zeinabiyoun, according to a report by Reuters.
On Sunday, a large number of shoppers had thronged the Eidgah bazaar in Parachinar, where used winter clothing was being sold cheaply. The powerful explosion, apparently set off by remote-control, could be heard over a wide area and caused panic among the throngs of people, leading to a stampede.
Security officials quickly reached the market and cordoned it off.
The wounded were ferried to nearby hospitals, but many in critical condition were airlifted to the city of Kohat, about 90 miles away, rescue workers said.
Parachinar has a history of sectarian violence, and Shiites, mostly belonging to the Turi tribe, have been repeatedly targeted by Sunni extremists and Taliban militants. The Kurram tribal region, where Sunni and Shiite Muslims are almost equally divided, also borders the North Waziristan tribal region, which has been the scene of a military offensive by the Pakistani military since last year.
The military has claimed success in uprooting the Taliban network in North Waziristan and much of Pakistan, but attacks on the Shiite population and other religious minorities, like Christians and Ahmadis, have continued.
“As a bastion of anti-Taliban resistance, Parachinar has been a target of terrorist attacks for years,” said Afrasiab Khattak, a former senator and a member of the Awami National Party.
The town and its Shiite population have also proved to be a strategic barricade to the ambitions of the Taliban, and specifically the Haqqani network, one of the most effective and violent factions of the Taliban.
American officials say that Haqqanis have been responsible for several of the most daring attacks inside Afghanistan in recent years, and accuse the Pakistani authorities of not making wholehearted efforts to stamp them out. Pakistani officials deny those assertions.
“For Haqqanis, who have relocated to lower Kurram and Thall from North Waziristan, Turis constitute a hurdle” in their efforts to cross the so-called Durand Line for attacks in the Afghan provinces of Paktia, Khost and Nangarhar, Mr. Khattak said.
Source: www.nytimes.com