Dozens killed in Karachi bus attack

Gunmen on motorcycles open fire on and board vehicle in south Pakistan

city

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Karachi police attend the scene after armed men on motorcycles attacked bus passengers

Jon Boone in Islamabad-Wednesday 13 May 2015

Gunmen killed dozens of commuters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on

Tuesday after forcing their way onto a crowded bus carrying members of a
minority Islamic sect.
Men on three motorbikes initially opened fire on the bus with automatic
weapons as it was travelling through the streets of the troubled city.
After it had come to a stop they climbed aboard to continue the killing
spree, with many of the unarmed civilians shot in the head at close range.
Six gunmen killed 45 people and injured another 13, the provincial police
chief said, in one of the worst sectarian slaughters in the city for years.
There was confusion over which one of Pakistans myriad militant groups
was behind the attack, with both Islamic State and a Pakistani Taliban

splinter group rushing to claim responsibility.

Saleem, a surviving passenger who was rushed to hospital with arm and leg
wounds, said the gunmen began systematically executing people after
climbing onto the bus.
I saw five armed men who started targeting passengers individually, he
said.
They want to target us because we are not Muslims according to most
people inPakistan, he said.

Rescue workers stand beside a bus attacked by gunmen in Karachi.

Photograph: Rehan Khan/EPA
The passengers were nearly all Ismailis, members of an international
community of Muslims who follow the Aga Khan, the Europe-based spiritual
leader and business tycoon.
Ismailis tend to be peaceful and progressive but as members of a branch of
Shia Islam they are regarded as heretics by Pakistans various militant
Sunni terrorist groups who have been active in Karachi for decades.
This attack represents a senseless act of violence against a peaceful

community. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families
of those killed and wounded in the attack, the Aga Khan said in a
statement.
Regular murders of individual Shias often members of the medical
profession are punctuated by occasional mass killings, such as the March
2013 bombing of a Shia neighbourhood, which gutted blocks of flats and
left nearly 50 people dead.
Tuesdays attack took place in the north-east of Karachi, a vast city of some
20m people, as residents of the largely Ismaili Al-Azhar Garden housing
community were going about their daily routine of being dropped off at
work in a distinctive bright pink bus.
Men, women and some children were on board, according to local media
reports.
Naveed Shah, a passer-by, said the attackers forced the bus to a halt with
gunfire before getting on board.
There were six of them who started intense firing into the bus, he said. I
heard women and children were shouting for help but no one dared to help
them.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on
jihadi Twitter accounts that described the Ismaili victims as infidels.
Printed leaflets found near the scene of the attack also claimed it was the
work of Isis.
The fliers said the attackers were avenging, among other things, the
torture of Sunni women by the army and the killing of our fighters by the
Karachi police.
The leaflets resembled those found at the scene of the killing by gunmen in
the city of US citizen Debra Lobo last month.
However, Jundullah, a Pakistani Taliban splinter group, also rushed to claim
responsibility.
These killed people were Ismaili and we consider them [non-Muslim]. We
had four attackers. In the coming days we will attack Ismailis, Shias and

Christians, spokesman Ahmed Marwat told Reuters.

Although there have been a spate of incidents involving pro-Isis leafleting
and graffiti in recent months and some Pakistani Taliban militants have
pledged allegiance to the group most analysts have argued the Isis
presence in Pakistan is still small.
The attack comes despite almost two years of a high-profile operation
against criminal gangs and terrorists in the city led by the Rangers, a
paramilitary force controlled by the army.
The government of Sindh, the province of which Karachi is the capital,
immediately responded by announcing the suspension of senior police
officials and promising financial compensation for the families of victims.
The countrys army chief also announced he was postponing a three day
official visit to Sri Lanka.
Tuesdays attack was the deadliest single sectarian attack in Pakistan since
thesuicide bombing of a Shia mosque in southern Shikarpur district killed 61
in January.
Posted by Thavam