Thaindian News

Islamabad, April 17 (DPA) Two suicide bombings at a refugee camp in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province Saturday killed at least 41 people and injured 64, police said.
The attacks in the Kacha Pakka area of Kohat district appeared to be aimed at the Shiite Muslims among the thousands who have fled the fighting in the tribal district of Orazkzai.

One bomber detonated his explosives among people queuing up for daily government issue rations, provincial police spokesman Fazal Naeem said.

Seven minutes later, as rescue work got underway, a second suicide bomber struck, he said.

“Forty-one people have been killed and 64 injured, including 10 seriously,” Naeem said. “We have recovered the severed heads of both attackers.”

Mubashir Khan, an official at the state-run hospital in Kohat, also confirmed that 41 died in the twin blasts. He put the number of wounded to 60.

The police spokesman said the victims, most of them Shiite Muslims, were displaced by the fighting between Taliban militants and the army in Orakzai district.

“It is clearly a sectarian attack since it was directed mainly against the Shiites,” Naeem said. Two vests used in the attacks contained between eight to 10 kg of explosives each, he said.

Hours after the attack, Salman Haider, a purported spokesman of the banned and staunchly anti-Shiite group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Aalimi, claimed responsibility for the attack.

“Our targets in the attack were the Shiites,” Haider said. “We have retaliated for the murder of two Shiite women who had recently converted to Sunni Islam,” he told reporters over the phone. “Shiite people killed these women.”

Pakistan has a long history of sectarian violence between extremist groups from majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslim groups.

The rivalry has intensified since the spread of influence of the Sunni-dominated Taliban influence in the border areas near Afghanistan.

Orakzai has been at the centre of sectarian violence, with militants led by Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud regularly targeting Shiites.

According to the United Nations, 210,000 people have abandoned their homes since the military offensive began in late 2009.

They include some 50,000 refugees who fled when the military launched a ground offensive last month.

Earlier, a security official said that 21 Taliban militants were killed Saturday in fighting in the Sanghra area of Orakzai district, where troops backed by armoured vehicles, artillery and fighter jets launched an operation last month.

“Our estimate is that 21 militants have been killed in these attacks,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “A number of their safe areas were also destroyed by the forces.”

According to official data, more than 350 insurgents have been killed in the operation, including Arab and Central Asian fighters associated with Al Qaeda.

Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a hospital in Quetta, the capital of south-western Balochistan province. Eleven people, including a senior police officer, died in that attack.

A member of the national parliament from the ruling Pakistan People’s Party was one of the 28 injured.