sábado, 4 de mayo de 2013

Central & South Asia Blasts kill scores in Pakistan cities - Aljazeera.com

More than 89 people have been killed and scores wounded in a series of multiple attacks across Pakistan.

Bomb explosions and violent deaths rocked Quetta, in the country's southwest; Swat valley in the northwest; and the port city of Karachi on Thursday.

At least 55 people were killed and 150 others wounded in four separate explosions in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.

The blast targeted a vehicle belonging to the Frontier Corps, a regional paramilitary force. At least two officers were among the dead. Pools of blood, smashed windowpanes and charred pieces of metal littered the street after the blast.

The Baluch Liberation Army, a local anti-government group, claimed responsibility for the blast.

Balochistan is the site of a nearly decade-old armed campaign against the Pakistani state. Rebels in the province want political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's wealth of oil and gas deposits.

"Eleven people were killed and 30 injured in the blast. We will be able to tell you after some time what kind of device it was, but it was a crowded place," Mir Zubair Mehmood, Quetta police chief, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

Abdul Razzaq, a bomb-disposal official, said the device was packed with 20 to 25kg of explosives, and was detonated by remote control.

It was the worst bombing in Balochistan since December, when a car bomb killed at least 19 Shia Muslim pilgrims en route to Iran in Mastung district, about 30km south of Quetta.

Deaths in Swat

In Swat, at least 25 people were killed and 70 wounded in Pafter a gas cylinder exploded at a religious gathering on Thursday, according to police officials.

Akhtar Hayat, the regional police chief, said the explosion occurred at a weekly meeting of the local Tableeghi Jamaat at its primary centre in the outskirts of Mingora, the main town in the northwestern district.

"According to initial reports it was a gas-cylinder blast," Gul Afzal Afridi, another senior police officer, told AFP news agency.

There were around 1,500 people listening to the speech of a Muslim leader at the centre when the cylinder exploded, he said.

A bomb-disposal unit was summoned to investigate though there was no sign of any explosives at the blast site, he said.

The Pakistani Taliban seized much of Swat during a 2007-2009 armed campaign but the army declared the region back under control after an offensive in July 2009.

In addition to the deaths in Quetta and Swat, nine people were shot dead in separate incidents in in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and its commercial hub.

Seven people were killed near Dr Nadir Homeopathic Hospital at Karachi-Hyderabad Superhighway.

Retailers in the area closed their shops in fear of the incident.

A man was also shot in the Gulbahar vicinity while another was killed near Singer Roundabout in Korangi.

Two people were also killed in another shooting near Sir Syed University in Karachi's Gulshan-i-Iqbal neighbourhood.

According to local publication Dawn News, the dead were robbers and were shot by police in a fire exchange.

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