Pakistani Terrorist Group Kills 5 Shia Muslims in Karachi
The shooting took place in the North Nazimabad neighborhood of the sprawling metropolis of more than 18 million people, where sectarian, ethnic and political violence is common.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi's Al Alami faction, which targets Shias and Pakistan's security forces, killed more than 60 police cadets in the southwestern city of Quetta on Monday in an attack in conjunction with the Daesh terrorist group.
But it said it carried out this attack on its own.
"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al Alami accepts responsibility for those killed in this attack, and we announce that there is no room for the enemies of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad in Pakistan," said Ali bin Sufyan, the group's spokesperson, in a statement.
Provincial police chief Allah Dino Khwaja told reporters men on two motorcycles fired on the gathering, Reuters reported.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi terrorist group, which has been involved in several attacks on Shia Muslims in recent years, is largely funded by Saudi Arabia. It has claimed responsibility for some of the most brazen attacks on the Shia community in Pakistan's recent history, including a January 2013 bombing in Quetta, where over 100 members of the Hazara community were killed.
Shias in Pakistan have been the subject of numerous attacks, with the Pakistani faction of the Taliban carrying out most of such assaults in the past. The community accounts for some 20 percent of Pakistan's 200-million population and is mostly based in Balochistan, an area which borders Iran and Afghanistan and has oil and gas resources. However, security has been a main issue for the Shias as thousands of them have been killed as a result of militancy and hate attacks over the past decade.
