Pakistan: Terrorists target Masjid, kill over 40 including children

Karachi, Jan 30: At least 40people, including children, were killed and over 55 injured when a powerful blast ripped through a packed minority Shia mosque in Pakistan's Sindh province during the Friday prayers, in the deadliest sectarian attack to hit the country in recent times.

The roof of a central Shia Muslim Imambargah came down after an explosion in Lakhi Dar area of Shikarpur - around 470 kilometres north of here - when worshippers had assembled for the Friday prayers, burying them.

At least 40 people were killed and over 55 were injured in the attack, some critically. Private media said it could be suicide bombing.

Many were trapped under the debris and hundreds of people rushed to the scene to dig out survivors.

The explosion was heard several kilometers away. Children are also said to be among the victims. Television footage showed chaotic scenes as people rushed to take the wounded for treatment using cars, motorbikes and rickshaws.

"It was a big explosion inside the Imambargah and was set off with a remote device. The intensity of the blast led to the roof of the make-shift building caving in completely which has led to many deaths," senior police official Abdullah Mehr said over telephone.

Geo TV quoted DIG Shikarpur Rakhio Mirani as saying that a man brought a device inside the Imambargah and used it to detonate a bomb.

The blast is the latest in a rising tide of sectarian violence blighting Pakistan, where radical Sunni Muslim groups often target Shia Muslims, who form about one-fifth of the 180 million-population.

Jundullah militant group took responsibility of the attack. "Our target was the Shia because they are our enemies," spokesman Fahad Marwat said.

The group last year parted ways with the Taliban and announced allegiance with the Islamic State militant group.

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Cut all ties with Israel and impose arms, trade embargo; history will record our action: Iran to Muslim countries

News Network

May 5,2024

Iran has urged Muslim countries to cut all relations with the Israeli regime as means of pressuring Tel Aviv to end its ongoing genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks on Saturday, addressing the 15th Heads of State and Government Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Gambia’s capital Banjul.

“Beyond doubt, this time period will also pass by, despite all its hardships and adversities for the Palestinian nation,” he said.

“However, the manner and quality of the role that is played by us, Muslim states, in the face of this crisis will go down in history,” the top diplomat added.

“Undoubtedly, severance of diplomatic and economic ties and [imposition of] practical arms and trade embargo [on Israel] serves as an important means of cessation of its genocide in Gaza and atrocities in the West Bank and the Noble al-Quds.”

At least 34,654 people have died in Gaza since October 7, when the Israeli regime began the war in response to al-Aqsa Storm, a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

Despite the unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction, the regime has so far fallen short of realizing its goals, including defeating Gaza’s resistance, causing forced displacement of the territory’s entire population to neighboring Egypt, and enabling the release of those who were taken captive during al-Aqsa Storm.

Amir-Abdollahian said Gaza’s developments proved that elimination of the Palestinian resistance “was nothing but an illusion.”

“Because the Israeli regime is not a legitimate government. It is only an occupying apartheid power,” he said, adding, “Passage of time is not going to lend legitimacy to an occupying power.”

The foreign minister asserted that realization of sustainable peace and security in the region was only possible through cessation of the regime’s occupation of Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland, and manifestation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

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