[NYTIMES] A bombing killed at least 20 people on Saturday during an auction at a vegetable market in a mostly Shiite town in northwestern Pakistain, ending a long lull in holy warrior violence there, officials said.At least 43 people were maimed in the morning bombing in Parachinar, capital of the Kurram tribal region, which borders Afghanistan. The Pak Taliban grabbed credit for the attack."I was in my shop when a deafening blast shook the market," a Parachinar resident, Hussain Ali Tori, said by telephone.
"I have seen dozens of shattered bodies lying on the ground. Some were dead, and many were crying for help."A Taliban front man, Muhammad Khurasani, said a jacket wallah had carried out the attack, but a Kurram official, Nasrullah Khan, said the bomb appeared to have been planted in a crate.
"The place is always crowded," said Mr. Khan, a deputy administrator.Parachinar has been a center of resistance to the Taliban, specifically the Haqqani network, which is one of the movement’s most violent factions, and it has been the site of numerous bombings in the past. But there had been none since December 2015, when another market bombing killed 23 people.
More: Dozens killed in Pakistan market blast; Taliban, LeJ claim hand
An kaboom in a busy vegetable market killed at least 21 people on Saturday in Pakistain's remote northwestern tribal region, an official said, in an attack jointly claimed by the Pak Taliban and a branch of the sectarian Lion of Islam group 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 ...
About 40 others were maimed in the blast in Kurram region, near the border with Afghanistan, said Sajid Hussain Turi, member of the National Assembly from the region.
"We received 21 bodies of the local tribal people killed in the blast," Turi said, adding that there would be a mass funeral followed by a demonstration over the attack.
Spokesmen for the Pak Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami said the two groups coordinated the attack together.
Mohammad Khurassani, a front man for the Mehsud faction of the Pak Taliban, said the attack was to avenge Tuesday's killing of the leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Asif Chotoo, by police in the eastern province of Punjab.
Ali bin Sufyan, front man for LeJ's Al Alami faction, told Rooters his group had coordinated the attack with the Pak Taliban. The Al Alami gunnies in the past have claimed to have coordinated attacks with Middle East-based Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
's branch in Pakistain, including the November bombing of a Moslem shrine that killed 52 people, but the group also allies with the Taliban.
Reports differed on the cause of the kaboom.
Turi said a homemade bomb had been planted in a pile of tomatoes and went
kaboom!as people gathered in the market in Parachinar, Kurram's main town, early on Saturday morning.
Talibs have been active around Parachinar in the past, ad the town has also suffered sectarian tension between Sunni and Shi'ite Moslems.
Another Kurram official, Sabzali Khan, said early reports had suggested that a jacket wallah was responsible for the blast.
An eyewitness, Ashiq Hussain, said he saw bodies strewn around the market and maimed people crying out for help.
"There was no ambulance, and people had to carry the injured in cars and private pickup trucks to the hospital," Hussain told Rooters.
A statement from Pakistain's military said army helicopters had been dispatched to evacuate the maimed.