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Double blasts kill 25 in Pakistan
At least 25 people were killed in southwest Pakistan on Saturday when militants blew up a bus carrying women students and attacked a hospital treating survivors, officials said.
The second attack hit the emergency ward of the citys Bolan Medical Complex where the wounded were taken and was followed by a gun battle with militants holed up inside the hospital. The siege lasted for several hours and ended when security forces stormed the building. Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar said the bus bomb killed 14 students and wounded 19. As casualties were being brought to the hospital terrorists had taken position inside the hospital building, he told reporters. They opened fire on administration and police officials who arrived at the hospital. One suicide bomber blew himself up in the hospital. Nisar said he was unable to give exact casualty figures of the hospital attack, but Abdul Wasey, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps earlier said 11 were killed and 17 wounded in the bombing. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attacks but Quetta is a focal point for sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias. The bus targeted in the attack was from Sardar Bahadur Khan Womens University. Overnight, militants blew up a historic building in Baluchistan linked to Pakistans founding father, razing its structure to the ground. The attackers armed with automatic weapons entered the 19th century wooden Ziarat Residency after midnight and planted several bombs, senior administration official Nadeem Tahir told AFP. Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the driving force behind the creation of the Pakistan, spent his last days in the building which was declared a national monument following his death, one year after the countrys independence in 1947. The building is in Ziarat town, 80km southeast of Quetta. They shot dead the guard who resisted the intruders, Tahir said. Police official Asghar Ali said militants planted several bombs and detonated them by remote control, completely gutting the building. At least four blasts were heard in the town, he said. The building caught fire and it took five hours to bring the blaze under control as Ziarat, a small hill station, has no fire brigade. A separatist-group later claimed responsibility for the attack. We blew up the Ziarat Residency, Meerak Baluch, a spokesman for the Baluchistan Liberation Army told AFP in a phone call from undisclosed location. We dont recognise any Pakistani monument. Pakistans new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed Baluch nationalist leaders as provincial governor and chief minister, raising hopes that some of the long-held grievances in the province about its treatment by the federal government could be addressed.
Posted by: Steve White 2013-06-16 |
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