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T. Mughal / EPA
People react at the site of a suicide bomb attack targeting a Shiite Muslim mourning procession in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Wednesday.
Updated at 7:29 a.m. ET: A Taliban suicide bomber struck a procession near Pakistan's capital, killing 23 people in the latest of a series of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims during the sect's holiest month of the year, officials said Thursday.
The bomber attacked the procession around midnight Wednesday in the city of Rawalpindi, said Deeba Shahnaz, a state rescue official.
At least 62 people were wounded by the blast, including six police officers. Eight of the dead and wounded were children, Shahnaz said.
Muhammed Muheisen / AP
Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.
Police tried to stop and search the bomber as he attempted to join the procession, but he ran past them and detonated his explosives, senior police official Haseeb Shah said. The attacker was also carrying grenades, some of which exploded, Shah said.
Malala's wounded friends back in Pakistan school
"I think the explosives combined with grenades caused the big loss," said Shah.
Local TV footage showed the scene of the bombing littered with body parts and smeared with blood. Shiites beat their heads and chests in anguish.
"It was like the world was ending," said one of the victims, Nasir Shah, describing the blast. He was being treated at a local hospital for wounds to his hands and legs.
Officials in india say the lone surviving gunman from the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai was executed. The Pakistani citizen was one of ten gunmen who went on a three-day killing rampage. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.
Earlier Wednesday, the Taliban set off two bombs within minutes outside a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Karachi, killing one person and wounding 15 others, senior police official Javed Odho said.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attacks in Rawalpindi and Karachi.
"We have a war of belief with Shiites," Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location. "They are blasphemers. We will continue attacking them."
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Leave a Comment:
yet at least 20 missiles have been launched against Israel since the "cease-fire:
Just another day in the Middle East...and so the killing continues.
Technically, Pakistan is in South Asia, but I totally get your point.
Time to mark a drone missile with "Ahsanullah Ahsan"'s name on it.
People like the Taliban have no remorse for killing other Muslims. Time for unity in the Muslim World and send these folks packing to meet their Virgins.
Hey, let the moronic, murderous nutcases over there kill each other UNIMPEDED! It's none of our business how many Shiites get killed by Sunnis or the other way around. Let's just be glad the crazies are killing each other over their religious differences and hatred. Let them fight it out and kill each other to the last man, woman, and child, then we can simply send in the oil companies to get the only worthwhile thing in either country. And we can even provide them transport between Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and any other Muslim nation over there, calling it the Alihu Akbar Express.
@Ido,
That post was the only one I have agreed with you this year. See? There is common ground.
@Kraussk:
I used to agree with that view. The problem with that view, though, is they (the extreme right Muslims) want to take over the world by killing all "non-believers". And they don't care who they kill to do it, women, children, everyone in the tall building, etc. They want to destroy America because we are a threat to their agenda.
I do not think you and me and the US want to sit back and let them advance on that path.
One side kills then the other side kills in retaliation, then both sides continue killing in retaliation, then how does it end? With only one side left?
Sad to hear about Paki's, and the hospital that was bombed in Syria yesterday killing more then 40 people, and 108 for the day there. We are thankful to be living in the greatest country on earth. Have a nice Thanksgiving!!
"A Taliban suicide bomber struck a procession near Pakistan's capital, killing 23 people in the latest of a series of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims during the sect's holiest month of the year"
Islamic religious madness have no limits in Pakistan, a pure Islamic nation.
All it takes is to declare: some one else infidel and then start the jihad!
These very Shiites, who have the audicity to declare: "like the world was ending", looked the other way when there were genocides of Hindus and other religious groups' people in Pakistan. Now when they are affected, they feel the pain.
Before followers of Islamic cult set their feet on Afghan and Paki regions, these regions were quite peaceful and prosperous.
Once the cancer of Islam gradually got control of the region, those regions have become raping, stealing, looting and killing fields.
In Afghanistan, Paki proxies Taliban did not even tolerate Buddha’s statue in Bamiyan.
Many Paki areas and some Afghan areas have become breeding and exporting centers for illegal activities including drugs growing and trading and export of Islamic radicals and terrorists all over the world.
British invented Pakistan in 47 and Pakistan is supposed to be a pure Islamic nation. In Pakistan, it was massive genocides of minorities in between 48-50.
Percentages of Hindus and Sikhs were reduced from about 24 percent less than three years by rapings, stealing, lootings, terrorizing and killing on a massive scale.
Paki Islamic religious madness did not end there.
Sunni Pakis are after Ahmedias, Sufis (fake love and dance Islamic soap opera people), Shiites (20 percent), Hazaras, and Baloochs and other minority sects/tribes.
Shiites, Sufis, Ahmedias and other minority sects/tribes people are blown up while they pray in their mosques on Fridays. Ad even hospitals are bombed to kill those injured.
A Washington, DC based think tank Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memri.org) provides good details on what is going in Pakistan.
Jonathan- I have been reading your posts for quite some time.I have noticed many have accused you of being an Indian national.Honestly I don't care because I think your opinion is spot on and very accurate.You obviously have first hand experience or have researched the issue well. At any lenght I love reading your posts.Please keep up the good work my friend.the truth needs to be known.
Roncombatvet: Thanks a lot.
Many don't like the truth and realities, which they will have to admit one day or the other.
Shiites, who collaborated in the genocides of Hindus and other minorities, are getting what non-Muslims got in the early stages in Pakistan.
I have lots of stakes in the US and I am an US citizen. If the US economy goes down, I go down the tube too!
My daughter even with a MSW has been without a job for a long time.
For me, US interests are No. 1. I have contributed a lot in IT sector.
Why should the US soldiers get injured or die for the ungrateful and backstabbers like Pakis, Saudis and co?
So I oppose Syrian, Iranian and other inteventions, which do not benefit the US.
Sounds like Jonathan agrees with carpet bombing the problem area. I think thousands of innocents would be in harms way. Although all the children will be brought up the same way as the extreme Islamist and with the same twisted idea to take over the world. Troubling idea. I do know this has to stop. Could education be a link? Or is that out of the equation...?
Max from Scottsdale: Most of the institutions in Pakistan, Afghanistan and some other basket case Muslim nations, are destroyed.
So even proper education without getting hung up on Islam is not possible.
If we don't carpet bomb, the Paki militant areas will be breeding more Islamic haters and killers and exporting them. Some more problems in our streets right in the US.
Also, many of these haters and killers will start killing other Muslims as Pakistani Taliban has done in this case. Here also lots of innocents will be affected and it will be killings Islamic style (very painful process)!
Why don't we just bomb Pakistan off the face of the earth and I do believe the world would be a much better place. They're idiots without a conscience or regard for human life.
It sounds like you've given this a lot of thought...or at least as much thought as someone like you is capable of.
Hilter is that you?
As we move, many will come to your conclusion.
British invented Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. US and allies have kept them alive in the map!
At the same time, 80 percent of world Islamic extremists problems including the current economic mess due to manipulation of high oil prices by inventing Iraqi wars and now sanctions on Iranian oil, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are guilty!
Sunni Saudi Arabia and other ME Sunni rulers have proved to be most ungrateful and are bigtime backstabbers by promoting and exporting radical Sunni Islamic versions Salaffi and Wahhabi.
Just look at terror attacks plans in the US including by one Saudi student! Saudi student wanted to use chemical weapons for his jihad.
If Saudi Arabia does not permit non-Islamic religious places like churches, what right do the barbaric, beastly, bigoted and despotic Sunni Saudis have to fund their Salaffi and Wahhabi mosques all over the world?
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope people remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
These Paki Islamic religious Nazis don't bother about their people and they are into reckless killing games in the name of jihad.
Drone attacks are not enough. To
Drone attacks are not enough. To reduce NATO forces losses, carpet bomb Paki militant areas just like 1991 Iraqi war.
In Afghanistan, Pakis have backstabbed the US and NATO forces big time. Half of NATO forces deaths are due to ungrateful and backstabbing Pakis.
When the NATO forces were entering Kandahar in 2001, Pakis airlifted key al-Qaida, Taliban, ISI and others militants by back door from Kandahar.
This includes Mullah Omar, Osama and many including Paki Haqqani militant network leaders.
Hope people remember about Pakis sheltering Osama.
These Paki Islamic religious Nazis don't bother about their people and they are into reckless killing games in the name of jihad.
Drone attacks are not enough. To reduce NATO forces losses, carpet bomb Paki militant areas just like 1991 Iraqi war.
Shiites and Sunnis are battling big time in Syria, Pakistan, and other places.
US and allies are so crippled that they will not be able to decide Sunni Saudis and co as the winners as they did by removing Saddam with two Iraqi wars in battles with Shiites!
Speaking of "idiots without a conscience or regard for human life," you just called for the killing of millions?
The Pakistani people do not seem to be up in arms over this attack much as the drones. What a bunch of tools.
This is Pakistan, you guys, this story has nothing to do with Israel and The Gaza conflict. Pakistan is around 1000 miles from Israel.
This sucide bomber story is about the struggle between the Shiite and the Sunnis. Nothing to do with the Palestine versus Israel issue.
I'm all for it!! Shiites know that sunni's are the wrong type of muslim, and sunni's know that shiites aren't quite muslim enough! They are perfectly within their rights as muslims to point that out to each other in horrific, yet islamically prefered methods.
allahu snackbar!!
We need to quit sending them any foreign aid until they kill off all of their terrorists.
Do't worry that will not happen at least for few decades.
We may get many who have ruined their Pakistan into our nations doing all sorts of their Ramadan, Sufi style dances and so on in the US, Britain, Europe and other non-Muslim nations.
Gen Mush, the biggest criminal and backstabber in Afghanistan, is in Britain and his son is in the US.
Most top Pakis have British as well as Paki citizenships.
Even the Sunni Saudi criminals like those of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some MB front covers are operating from Britain.
Why not beat the Taliban into anguish. They number like 38,000 to your army of close to half a million strong all branches included. The forces stretched to thin does not hold water. Someone higher up is holding them back.
They do not attack them where they eat and sleep. I would hold the govt accountable for every death of your citizens.
A warm fuzzy giggle-snort happens whenever I read about muslims on muslims! It does a planet good!!
If we could get each muslim on planet earth to kill just one muslim each day (many do already, it needs expansion), within a month, it would be a nicer place to live.
The Taliban and al Qaeda are like a cancer that infects the host nation and killing the cells one at a time is useless as they replicate faster that they can be eradicated. They also seem to thrive in host nations that are not only a Muslim majority but also third world in nature with a majority of very uneducated populous. Maybe the answer is in widespread education reform making non-secular education mandatory in targeted nations making recruitment increasingly difficult.
That's the crux of it right there. Educated people don't blow themselves up to kill those they've never met, on the orders of someone else they've probably never met, for a god they sure as well aren't gonna meet.
I agree. education would help...If they stop dragging their feet. How many 15 year old girls have to (hurt or)die to be well informed and educated citizens of their country? It's changing, but I feel it will get worse before it gets better.
The time for fanaticism will be over when secularism dominates Pakistan. Pakistan was once part of India until they decided to separate to fans the flames of religious fanaticism rather than develop a secular relationship with their Hindu neighbors. When the rest of world prospers and the fanatics witness how silly they now look to their own people than there will be a chance for change.
If the Muslims would trade their stupid holy days with western stupid holy days, the Muslims would be a little better off.
why?
and this is the religion of peace...
to start with and then turn a place to pieces!
Because the best way to convince other people of your beliefs is to kill them......oh the irony.
Saudis have given Sunnis their extremist Islamic versions of Salaffi and Wahhabi. They have taken them back to seventh century desert days.
Iranian Ayotollahs have taken Shiites to tenth century desert days.
When Muslims don't have not many non-Muslims to kill as in Pakistan, they kill each other on the basis of who is purer!
Shiites vs Sunni battles have started in full swing in Pakistan, Syria and other places.
Now Hillary and co dancing to the tunes set by Netanyahus and Christian rights like McCains, Bushes, Romneys can't do much to save their Sunni Saudi pals as they did with Iraqi wars or Pakistan, a strategic ally!
Time has gone beyond "cold war" day theories, Iraqi wars inventions and other dances and dramas to decide Saudis (Syria and Iran in particular) and Pakis as the winners!!!!
Ah, the 'religion of peace' strikes again. And to think, the suicide bombers are all driven by SEX in the afterlife. What a bunch of twisted, satanic, misled savages!
I'm thinking the Taliban will stop when all Shia, Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, etc. are dead. Do you get the idea?
In other words - NEVER.
If Muslims don't have Americans Christians Buddhists Hindus or any other group to attack they attack each other. The Taliban are Muslims and they are fighting and murdering people because they believe it is their duty to do so.
One can't imagine how this hating and killing Islam has survived so long.
Allah must be furious with these people as Muslims are killing each other.
Allah must fasten the killing rates and numbers to clean Islam of bad Muslims/infidels.
This is supposed to be holy month for Muslims! If they observe their holy month in this manner, how it will be at other times?
Can you get more religious mad people ever?
What craps Muslims are giving about their religion being love and peace?
Koran toilet paper, islam toilet brush and muslim toilet liquid is the new complete bathroom solution use it to believe it. Will these savages ever learn a peaceful existence. History refutes any hope of this happening.
Spot on!
Religion is the opium of the masses. Many non-Islamic religious people have painfully understood this.
If religions did not reform with times, many have vanished and for some religions followers are dwindling fast.
Ironically, followers of Islamic cult have become high dosage heroin addicts.
We are in 21st century and Islam has to change with times.
The rate at which Muslims are killing each other, Allah's prediction that Isalm and its followers will be history may become quicker than anticipated.
Even for toilets, many followers of Islamic cult will not be fit for toilet. They will need special garbage dumps far away from where humans live!
Turns out that shiites are the "wrong type" of muslim, and the sunni aren't quite "muslim enough". They need to battle this internally, and be supported 100% by non-muslims. It's up to the muslims to kill and maim the muslims until the muslims come around and bcome proper muslims, in line with muslim beliefs. One idea is for each muslim to kill an incorrect muslim each day. If all muslims come on board, and we wait a month or so, the problem will be solved.
For this reason, I strongly oppose intervention in Syria, Iran and other palces where Shiites, Sunnis, Sufis are battling whose Allah is greater.
Remove the sanctions on Iranian oil to weaken the Sunni Saudi, Qatari, UAE, Kuwaiti and other barbarians, beasts and bigoted ones.
Unfortunately, even in battles these people are not good. They kill in double digits and at most thousands.
Why can't they kill quickly in millions?
"I think the explosives combined with grenades caused the big loss," said Shah.
..........Did anyone else find that particular quote in the article...I don't know...unnecessary?
Ya its like here's your sign, Without the explosives and the grenades there wouldn't have been any loss ..Duh Theses people or what ever you might want to call them. Barbarians are frickin idiots let them blow each other off the face of the earth. 78 virgins in heaven there virgins idiots in heaven there probably gonna stay virgins in heaven,
Bummer.
Point of order.....only the lucky survivors in Gaza can now make any claims. The Hamas dudes in the KIA's are now worm food....BOOM! If getting your crap pounded out & your face all bloodied, by hitting Israel in it's rock solid fist, is considered a win...then 'go for it'!!!! How nice that the beautiful young ladies in the IDF Attack Helicopters & F16's got some excellent real live fire practice!!! The Persians should take note of how effective the 'Iron Dome' system is!!! Persia may need many more red martyr fountains & possible loosing land mass with forced swaps with the Kurds & Armenians.......STUFF to think about!!! BTW, A hearty THANKS to all the PLO informants who help out so much with the Gaza targeting....they are now all safely removed!!!!
Stevejc42 I am with you let them bomb each other out of existence then there will be peace in the middle east when no more muslims are left.