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CBC News – Numerous bombings in Pakistan kill at least 40

Numerous bombings in Pakistan kill at least 40

Thomson Reuters

Last Updated:Jun 23, two thousand seventeen 12:47 PM ET

Bombs killed at least forty people in Pakistan on Friday, with a suicide car bomber killing thirteen in the southwestern city of Quetta, and two blasts later claiming at least twenty seven lives in the northwestern town of Parachinar, officials said.

A separate gun attack on police in the southern megacity of Karachi killed four officers on Friday evening, a security official said. Seven police officers were among those killed in the very first attack, in Quetta, which happened when police stopped the car to search it at a checkpoint.

Abdul Razzaq Cheema, director general of police in Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is capital, told Reuters the bomber had detonated a car packed with explosives.

At least thirteen figures were taken to hospital, along with nineteen wounded people, said Wasim Baig, a spokesman for the Civil Hospital in Quetta. Nine security officials were among the wounded, said Fareed Sumalan, a doctor at the hospital.

Jamaat ur Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a message sent to Reuters by its spokesman, Asad Mansur.

“Our attacks will proceed until a true sharia system is enforced in Pakistan,” the spokesman said, referring to Islamic law.

The blast was so powerful it shattered windows in nearby buildings. (Banaras Khan/AFP/Getty Pics)

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for the attack in a message sent to journalists. Jamaat ur Ahrar and IS have jointly claimed responsibility for past attacks in Pakistan.

In the evening, several hundred kilometres to the northeast, two explosions in the town of Parachinar killed at least twenty seven people and wounded 120, a government official told Reuters.

The blasts were in a market and within three minutes of each other, senior government official Wazir Khan Wazir said. Parachinar is near the border with Afghanistan.

Many people were at the market buying food for iftar, the evening meal with which Muslims break the daily swift during the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan finishes this weekend.

No group claimed responsibility for the Parachinar blasts.

Police may have been targeted

In Baluchistan, provincial government spokesman Anwar ul Haq Kakar said the Quetta car bomb went off near the office of the inspector general (IG) of police.

“It’s possible the IG office was the target, or the assailants were attempting to inject the cantonment which is close by,” he said, referring to an army housing area.

Pakistani residents carry an injured man on Friday after the blasts at a market in Parachinar, capital of Kurram tribal district. (AFP/Getty Photos)

An official from Baluchistan’s bomb disposition unit said the car had contained up to ninety five kg of explosives. Television footage displayed emergency workers rushing to the debris-strewn scene as security officials cordoned it off.

Quetta is about one hundred km east of the border with Afghanistan.

Resource-rich Baluchistan province has been plagued by violence for years.

Separatist rebels are battling government compels while Taliban and other militant Islamist groups also operate there. Baluchistan is also a main centre of Chinese-backed “Belt and Road” infrastructure and energy projects involving some $57 billion US worth of investment across Pakistan.

Militants loyal to the Islamic State group abducted and killed two Chinese nationals in Quetta last month.

That attack prompted Pakistan to boost security for Chinese nationals and other foreigners in the province, which is already one of the most militarised regions in the country.

Late on Friday, in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial capital, four police were shot dead as they were observing the iftar meal to break the daily Ramadan rapid, local TV and a security official said.

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