“Tragedy strikes again,” is the headline in the Pakistani paper The News — as if dozens of people died due to some whaddaya-gonna-do natural disaster, rather than at the hands of the ueber-religious.
At least 45 people died and another 70 were injured in a huge explosion that ripped through a Shia-majority neighbourhood in Karachi on Sunday evening. … The Bomb Disposal Squad was also called in at the hospital due to security threats at the mortuary. … Terrorists used a remote-controlled, vehicle-based improvised explosive device (VBIED) weighing about 150kgs [330 lbs], which also contained ball bearings. … The explosion left a crater four feet deep and 10 feet in diameter at the site causing destruction up to 700 metres away.
The [Inspector General of Police] suspected the involvement of banned outfits the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in collaboration with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).
Both organizations are known Islamist terrorist groups in Pakistan.
In other news about the Religion of Pace:
• Lybia:
Gunmen attacked an Egyptian Coptic church in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, assaulting two priests.
• Bangladesh:
Bangladesh police arrested five students of an elite private university on Saturday on charges of murdering an anti-Islamist blogger whose death triggered nationwide turmoil. The students allegedly confessed to hacking to death Ahmed Rajib Haider, 35, on February 15, after he helped organize protests against leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party on trial for war crimes.
• Nigeria:
Radical islamic militants are preventing [polio vaccinations] by attacking clinics, health workers, and police who travel with vaccinators to orally administer the antidote to children. Earlier this month in northern Nigeria, armed men linked to Islamist extremist group Boko Haram killed nine people at a clinic after a local cleric denounced polio vaccination campaigns and local radio programs saying the campaigns are part of a foreign plot to sterilize Muslims.