Bomb Blast in Pakistan Kills at Least 23
By VOA News
19 August 2008
Pakistan police say a suicide bombing at a hospital in the country's northwest has killed 23 people, in a suspected act of sectarian violence.
Tuesday's blast took place as Shi'ite Muslims gathered outside a hospital in the town of Dera Ismail Khan near the Afghan border, to protest the killing earlier Tuesday of a Shi'ite man in an attack.
The police chief of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, Naveed Malik Khan, says the suicide bombing appeared to be linked to sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in the region. At least 20 people were wounded in the blast.
Most Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims, but Shi'ites make up about 20 percent of the country's population of 160 million. The communities generally coexist peacefully, but militants from both sides have attacked each other in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the 1980s.
In other violence in the Pakistan's northwest, security forces killed at least 13 militants Tuesday, as helicopter gunships and artillery targeted militant hideouts in the Bajaur tribal region. The clash erupted after militants attacked a military checkpoint along the Afghan border.
Security forces have been battling militants in Bajaur for nearly two weeks. Some 500 militants and at least 22 soldiers have been killed in the Bajaur tribal region. Thousands of residents have been displaced by the violence.
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