At least 10 people have been killed in two attacks in the south-western Pakistani city of Quetta.
The first attack took place early on Thursday morning when eight Shias were killed by gunmen who opened fire on a bus at a market.
Later a bomb hit a rally held by one of Pakistan’s biggest religious parties, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F)
Two people were killed and party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who was unhurt, said he thought he had been the target.
“I was in a bulletproof car and that’s why I survived. There is blood and human flesh on my car,” the cleric is quoted by AFP as telling local media.
“My car was badly damaged, almost destroyed. The windscreen of my car was completely cracked, we received a big shock but me and friends inside the car are safe and alive,” he said.
The cleric has been targeted before by militants, correspondents say, because he has committed to working within Pakistan’s electoral system.
Sectarian strikes
The first attack took place outside a local vegetable market.
Police told the AFP news agency that four gunmen killed six men in a minibus before chasing down another two and shooting them dead.
Sunni militants regularly attack members of the city’s Shia community.
Hundreds of Shia Hazaras in Quetta have been killed in such attacks over the last several years But no group has yet said it carried out this latest attack.
Over the years the city’s Shias have been angered by what they say is a lack of protection for them against sectarian attacks.
The last attack took place on 4 October, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a Shia neighbourhood of Quetta, killing at least five people.
Quetta is the capital of Balochistan province, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, and has been plagued by a separatist rebellion as well as a Taliban insurgency and sectarian violence.
Source: BBC News
