Pakistani gunmen kill 29 Shias
Gunmen shot dead 26 Pakistani Shia Muslim pilgrims travelling to Iran yesterday, the deadliest attack on the minority community in Pakistan for more than a year, officials said.
In a brutal assault, gunmen ordered pilgrims off their bus, lined them up and assassinated them in a hail of gunfire in Mastung, a district 50 kilometres south of Quetta, the capital of the southwest Baluchistan province.
"The attackers stopped the bus and forced the pilgrims to get off, lined them up and then opened fire," local deputy commissioner Saeed Imrani told AFP.
An hour after the first attack, unidentified gunmen killed another three Shias on the outskirts of Quetta whom police said were relatives of victims of the first incident en route to collect their bodies.
"Armed men ambushed their car. Three of them were killed and one was wounded. They were going to take the dead bodies," Hamid Shakil, a senior police officer in Quetta told AFP by telephone.
Baluchistan has increasingly become a flashpoint for sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias.
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