...mindless ferocity in a turban...
grabbed credit Sunday for a suicide kaboom that killed four paramilitary guards in the southwestern city of Quetta.
The attack targeted Pak Frontier Constabulary (FC) guards in the Mian Ghundi neighbourhood of the city -- around 140 kilometers (87 miles) from the frontier with Afghanistan -- where Hazara
...a grouping of Dari-speaking people of Sino-Tibetan descent inhabiting Afghanistan and Pakistain. They are predominantly Shia Moslems and not particularly warlike, which makes them favored targets...Shiite merchants were selling vegetables.
The bomber "targeted the FC elements with an explosives-laden jacket and an explosives-laden cycle of violence", on the Mastung road in Quetta, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) said in a statement cited by the SITE Intelligence Group.
A front man for the police's Counter-Terrorism Department confirmed the attack.
Three died immediately in the blast, with another officer dying later of his wounds, said Azhar Akram, a deputy inspector general of police.
Akram told AFP that 17 guards and two civilians were maimed in the blast, adding that three are at death's door.
The TTP claimed more than 30 FC personnel were killed and maimed in the attack.
Pak Prime Minister Imran Khan
...aka
The Great Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
condemned "the TTP attack on FC Checkpost" in a tweet from his office, offering his condolences and concern for the recovery of the maimed.
"The PM pays tribute to the security forces and their sacrifices to keep nation safe by thwarting foreign-backed terrorist designs," his office added.
Quetta is home to approximately 500,000 Hazaras, who mostly live in an ethnic enclave on the edge of the city.
The community has long been targeted by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really 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 western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
and other hard boy Sunni groups, who see them as a heretical sect.
A series of bombings carried out by a Pak sectarian hard boy group in 2013 killed over 200 Hazaras in the city.
Frontier guards have also been targeted by Baloch holy warriors, who have been waging a simmering insurgency for greater autonomy.