AFP: Weeping Families Identify Pakistan Victims
Weeping relatives gathered Sunday to identify the charred remains of loved ones killed in a double attack in Pakistan’s troubled southwest claimed by a banned Sunni militant group.
At least 25 people were killed on Saturday when militants blew up a bus carrying female students in Quetta, capital of restive Baluchistan province, and then stormed a hospital where survivors had been taken for treatment.
The extremist sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), responsible for a string of outrages against Pakistan’s Shiite Muslim minority, said it was behind both attacks.
An LeJ spokesman said a female suicide bomber struck the bus — a rare tactic in Pakistan — before gunmen attacked the hospital, claiming the strikes were revenge for an operation by security forces earlier this month.
Militants occupied parts of the Bolan Medical Complex in a standoff that lasted several hours and ended when security forces stormed the building, freeing 35 hostages.