Here you have it; another brain-dead, religious freak blows himself up and kills at least 42 innocent people; a number which could rise. As I’ve stated earlier on this Blog, suicide bomber attacks are almost without exception a daily occurrence these days.
Have Muslims across the globe, those who still profess that Islam is a peaceful religion, ever stopped to ask themselves why theirs is the only faith were people willingly blow themselves up; often times targeting yet other Muslims? How do they justify this? TGO
Refer to story below. Source: Associated Press
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) – At least 42 people were killed on Friday in a suicide bombing targeting a Shiite Muslim rally in Pakistan’s southwest city of Quetta, the latest in a string of sectarian attacks.
Police said the bomber was among the 450-strong crowd and detonated on reaching the main square in the city, triggering chaotic scenes, with people setting fires as others fled or laying on the ground to avoid ongoing gunfire.
“At least 42 people have been killed,” Quetta police chief Ghulam Shabir told AFP, adding that at least 70 people were injured.
A doctor in Quetta’s main hospital said the toll of wounded was higher, with more than 80 people receiving treatment for injuries sustained in the attack.
The rally was being held to mark Al-Quds day, an international event staged every year by the Shiite community, opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem and showing solidarity with Palestinian Muslims.
Shiite Muslims are in the minority in Pakistan, accounting for around a fifth of the country’s 160 million population, which is dominated by Sunnis.
Malik Iqbal, police chief for Baluchistan province, said rally organisers had been warned to use a different route in case of terror attacks.
Police were forced to quell unrest following the attack, said Sardar Khan, chief of Quetta’s police control room.
“An angry mob tried to set on fire a private building and vehicles. Some of the participants were armed and they were firing in the air. They also set on fire some bicycles and motorcycles,” said Khan.
Local television channel AaJ said one of its drivers had been killed in the blast, while there were reports of several other journalists injured in the incident.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the bomb blast and called for an immediate inquiry into the incident. The US embassy also condemned the attack.
It was the latest in a string of attacks as Muslims marked the final days of the holy month of Ramadan.
Earlier, at least one man was killed and four wounded Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up after being apprehended by police outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect in the city of Mardan in northwest Pakistan, police said.
“A suicide bomber was trying to enter the Ahmadis’ worship place, but he was intercepted by police,” Mardan police chief Waqif Khan told AFP, adding that the bomber had been shot before blowing himself up on the ground.
“A passerby was killed and four others were wounded in the firing and suicide attack,” Khan said, adding that it was unclear whether the man was killed by the bomb or by gunshots fired by the guards.
Police have handed over the bomber’s body parts to a forensic team, he said.
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks carried out by the Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists. More than 3,660 people have been killed in a series of suicide attacks and bomb explosions in Pakistan during the last three years
In the northwest city of Peshawar, which has often been targeted by militants, at least three policemen were injured when a bomb exploded near their patrol vehicle, police said.
The officers were checking vehicles on the city’s ring road and senior police official Mohammad Karim Khan said the bomb was detonated by remote control.
On Wednesday three suicide bombers killed 31 people and wounded hundreds when they targeted a Shiite mourning procession made up of thousands of people, at the moment of the breaking of the fast in the holy month of Ramadan.
Religious violence in Pakistan, mostly between Sunni and Shiite groups, has killed more than 4,000 people in the past decade.
In May nearly 100 people were killed in the eastern city of Lahore after militants stormed two Ahmadi prayer halls, launching gun and grenade attacks.
Gunmen later raided the hospital where victims were being treated, killing four people in a shootout.
Founded by Ghulam Ahmad, who was born in 1838, the Ahmadi sect believes that Ahmad himself was a prophet and that Jesus died aged 120 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-ruled Kashmir.
Pakistan declared them non-Muslims in 1974 and 10 years later barred them from calling themselves Muslims.
Sort of a mixed message at the beginning ,TGO. Yous start by calling it a religious freak and then comment on the disparity between Muslims and adherents of normal religions.
Which are you trying to blame, Islam or religion in general?
Actually jonolan, I blame both. Certainly Christianity and Judaism have had their bloody periods. The Bible’s Old Testament is filled with Judaic violence, wherein supposedly entire villages were wiped out; men, women and children alike. And we need not even discuss what Christianity did to humanity during 800 years of rule in Europe. But being that many if not most of Islam’s practitioners today are still living in the Stone Age and are the most fanatical, they are currently the primary culprit of violence in the world; by far.
To summarize, all religious fanaticism is bad.