Afghan president Hamid Karzai strongy condemned deadly terrorist attack in Quetta city of Pakistan where hundreds of people were killed or injured.
Karzai said the bombing was carried out by enemies of the ordinary people who are against the peace and stability of the region. He offered his condolences to the families of the victims and once again urged for joint and honest war against terrorism.
A suicide-bomb targeting Shia Hazaras in a busy market in Pakistan’s restive southwest killed 79 people including women and children and wounded 180 others, officials said Sunday.
The powerful bomb in a water tanker ripped through a packed bazaar near Hazara town, an area dominated by Shias on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of oil and gas rich Balochistan province, at around 6:00 pm (local time) on Saturday.
“We have recovered more dead bodies from the debris of a collapsed building. The death toll has now risen to 79,” senior Quetta police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP,
Quetta city police chief Zubair Mehmood said the water tanker, which officials said was packed with some 800 kilograms of explosives, was placed near a pillar of a two-storey building, which collapsed in the blast.
Members of the minority Shiite sect took to the city’s streets in angry protest, blocking roads with burning tires and throwing stones at passing vehicles. responsibility for the attack.
Police cordoned off the area. Most of the Shiites in the area are Hazaras, and they were quick to blame Lashker-e-Jhangvi, which later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where the Shiite minority has been attacked several times in recent months. Baluch nationalist groups are fighting an insurgency there to try to gain a greater share of income from the province’s gas and mineral resources. Islamic militants are also active in the province.
