[Pak Daily Times] The banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi... a 'more violent' offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistain. LeJ's purpose in life is to murder anyone who's not of utmost religious purity, starting with Shiites but including Brelvis, Ahmadis, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Rosicrucians, and just about anyone else you can think of. They are currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of al-Qaeda ...
(LeJ),has said it carried out attacks on a bus carrying women students and a hospital that killed at least 25.
The myrmidon outfit said a female jacket wallah struck the bus in Quetta, killing 14 women students. A follow up attack around 90 minutes later on a hospital treating survivors left at least 11 dead and led to a prolonged shootout between security forces and snuffies occupying part of the building. The standoff lasted for several hours and ended when security forces stormed the building, freeing 35 people who had been taken hostage, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar told news hounds on Saturday.
According to DIG (operations) Fayyaz Sumbul, the female suicide bomber is known to have boarded the bus in the guise of a university student. Abubakar Siddiq, a front man for LeJ, called newspaper offices in Quetta late Saturday to claim the killings. "The suicide kaboom on the bus was carried out by one of our sisters. She boarded the student bus and blew herself up," Siddiq said. "Then we carried out a second suicide attack at the hospital and our fighters killed several people. We did this because security forces killed our fighters and their wives in Kharotabad." Pak security forces on June 6 killed at least three snuffies and two women during a raid at a house in the Kharotabad neighbourhood of Quetta. Officials said they belonged to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain, with whom LeJ has links.
FIRs against both the bombings, in which a total of 25 persons were killed, have been registered under the anti-terrorism act, on the complaint of SHO Thana Barori. The attacks came hours after a national monument linked to Pakistain's founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah was destroyed by separatist snuffies in Ziarat, 80 kilometres southeast of Quetta. Quetta is a flashpoint for sectarian violence. A giant bomb planted in a water tanker being towed by a tractor killed 90 Hazaras in February, while another suicide kaboom at a snooker club in January killed 92 others. Both were claimed by LeJ.
There was fury in the Pak press on Sunday, both at the perpetrators and the security forces for failing to prevent the third major atrocity in Quetta in six months.
The bus targeted in Saturday's attack was from Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University, which is located close to a Hazara neighbourhood in Quetta, and many Hazaras are students.