Mosque atrocity follows bombing

At least eight people died today when gunmen opened fire outside a mosque in Quetta, the day after 30 mourners were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a policeman’s funeral in the Pakistani city.

The four-strong gun gang, who struck as worshippers left the Sunni mosque after sunrise prayers for the Eid festival, also wounded 15 people but though bullets raked the car of their target, local politician Ali Madad Jatak, he escaped unharmed. A witness said two children were among the dead.

Mr Jatak was a minister in the Balochistan provincial government for the Pakistan People’s Party, which led the last national coalition government. He said of the gunmen: “They fled after killing innocent people. I was the target. They could have fired at me. They killed innocent worshippers belonging to different communities. It is brutality on the level of animals.”

The attacks in Quetta, in south-west Pakistan, are the latest in spiralling militant violence since prime minister Nawaz Sharif took office two months ago, with a string of high-profile incidents in the last two weeks. Insurgent Pakistani Taliban fighters routinely target police and security forces, but no group has claimed responsibility for today’s shooting.

Police official Bashir Brohi said the motive and perpetrators were unclear. “The majority of the injured faithful were coming from the mosque,” he said. “It was an armed attack on the former minister ... it was not an attack on the mosque.”

The recent surge in sectarian violence in Quetta has been directed in the main against the Shia Muslim minority. On Tuesday, militants from the separatist Baloch Liberation Army shot 13 bus passengers dead 44 miles south-east of the city. Yesterday’s suicide bombing, which killed 21 police and nine civilians and left 55 people wounded, was for an officer shot dead in front of his children, two of whom were wounded.

Mr Sharif’s government has not yet presented a security strategy, despite campaign promises to negotiate with militant groups.