A suicide bomber blew himself up at a gathering of minority Shiite Muslims in Pakistan yesterday, killing 22 people a day after a deadly suicide attack in the capital, police said.
The attack in the central city of Chakwal came a day after a pilotless US drone aircraft killed 13 people including militants in the northwest and a suicide bomber killed eight soldiers in Islamabad.
About 2,000 people had gathered at a Shiite religious center in Chakwal, south of Islamabad, for a ceremony when the bomber struck.
“There was a break in the ceremony and some people were going out and others were coming in when all of a sudden a young man tried to run into the crowd,” a witness said. “When guards tried to stop him at the gate he blew himself up.”
Regional police chief Nasir Khan Durrani said 22 people had been killed and 35 wounded. Durrani said the death toll would have been much higher if the bomber had managed to force his way into the crowd.
Outside the religious center, blood was splattered over the gate and walls while shoes and other possessions were strewn on the ground. Three mangled motorcycles lay outside the gate.
In related news, Pakistani and Afghan officials prepared yesterday to send home the bodies of 46 Afghans found crammed into a truck container believed to have been bound for Iran, officials said.
The container, carrying around 110 people, was found about 20km south of Quetta, capital of oil and gas rich Baluchistan Province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, police said.
“The death toll is 46,” police official Ghulam Dastagir told reporters from the southwestern province after the bodies were found on Saturday. “[Another] 45 people were unconscious and have been admitted to hospital.”
The investigation into the matter had been handed over to Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which deals with immigration matters.
“We are investigating the matter and have contacted the Afghan consulate in Quetta, who have visited the hospital,” FIA Director Shahab Azeem told reporters.
“According to initial investigations the survivors have told us that they boarded the container at Chaman border and had to come to Quetta for onward journey to Iran,” Azeem said.
The official said a case had been registered against an Afghan national, Gul Agha, who according to survivors charged 30,000 rupees (US$375) each to take them to Iran.
Afghanistan’s counsel general in Quetta, Mohammad Daud Mohsini, said Afghan President Hamid Karzai had ordered authorities to send a special plane to fly the victims home.
Karzai’s office in Kabul said that the president was saddened by the deaths and warned against illegal migration.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’