From Informed Comment:
Sep 5, 2010 (22 hours ago)Toll in Quetta Bombing Rises to 65from Informed Comment by JuanThe death toll rose to 65 in Friday’s deadly suicide bombing of a Shiite rally in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province in Pakistan. The Shiites had been commemorating Jerusalem Day, in solidarity with the Palestinians. The city was paralyzed by a general strike called to protest poor security, and all schools were closed. Most of the victims were buried in a funeral ceremony at Marriabad cemetery. Some Shiites claimed that more people died in undisciplined police firing after the bomb went off than in the blast itself (though that allegation strikes me as implausible).
The attack came on the heels of a similar bombing in Lahore that also targeted Shiites, and is part of a pattern of attacks on Shiites, Sufis and Ahmadis, all Pakistani forms of Islam hated by the Salafi militant reform branch of Sunni Islam.
The recent bombings may have been made easy by the preoccupation of the Pakistani army with relief work for victims of the country’s almost cosmic flooding during the past month.
Aljazeera English has video:
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