Pakistan Taliban Claim Responsibility For Parade Attack

By Michael E. Sanchez
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PESHAWAR, Pakistan- On Wednesday Pakistan’s main Taliban faction claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed 43 people at a Shiite parade in the commercial capital of Karachi, and have threatened more attacks.  Asmatullah Shaheen, one of the commanders of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, made the claim on Wednesday in phone calls to news agencies from an undisclosed location.

“My group claims responsibility for the Karachi attack and we will carry out more such attacks, within 10 days,” he said, referring to the bombing of the previous day.

Shops, offices and schools were closed in the city after religious and political leader called for a day of mourning following the attack that in addition to the deaths left scores injured.

A bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body as crowds walked down Mohammed Ali Jinnah Road in the heart of Pakistan’s largest city on Monday, turning Ashoura, the holiest event on the Shiite Muslim calender into a bloodbath.  Shaheen, whose name is also on a government list of 19 most-wanted militant added, “We did it to protect the honor of the companions of the holy prophet” referring to the centuries old dispute between the Sunni, who dominate the Taliban and the Shiite over the succession to the Prophet Mohammed. 

It was the deadliest attack in Karachi in more than two years and one of the deadliest single sectarian-linked attacks in the conservative Muslim country’s history.  Since October, Pakistan has been pressing a major offensive against TTP in its South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border.

The bombing and the following arson by furious mourners underscored the extent of the volatility in Pakistan,were militant attacks have killed more than 2,760 people since July 2007.

Pakistan has posted a 10-million-rupee ($118,690) bounty for Shaheen’s capture dead or alive, when it published a list last month of its most-wanted TTP warlords.

Monday’s attack sparked riots as mourners rampaged, throwing stones at ambulances, torching cars and buildings and reducing shops to rubble. “Our office and the whole building is completely burnt.  Everything has been destroyed,” said Saleem Khan, who runs a car rental business in the city. 

 

Pakistan had tightened security to protect mass procession before Ashoura, deploying tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces.  The attack was the third on the commemorations in Pakistan this year.

 

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s President, blamed groups such as TTP for trying to turn Shiite and Sunni Muslims against each other.  

In Pakistan Sectarian violence periodically flares up between the minority Shiites, who beat and whip themselves in religious fervor during Ashoura, and the country’s majority Sunnis who account for 80 percent, who oppose the public displays of grief.

For more information, please see:

Aljazeera.Net-  Pakistani Taliban in Attack Claim– 30 December 2009

Associated Foreign Press-  Taliban Claim Pakistan Shiite Parade Attack– 30 December 2009

Reuters- Pakistan Taliban Says Carried Out Karachi Bombing– 30 December 20009

Author: Impunity Watch Archive