Suicide bomber hits marketplace in Pakistan
At least 78 people killed in attack, police tell CNN.
REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed
Smoke rises after a bomb attack in a Shi'ite Muslim area of the Pakistani city of Quetta February 16, 2013. Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which intelligence officials say has become a major security threat, claimed responsibility for the sectarian attack on Shi'ites which killed 47 people in the city of Quetta on Saturday.
A suicide bomber targeting Shiites in a busy Pakistani marketplace killed at least 83 people on Saturday, police told CNN.
The attack in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta left at least 180 people wounded.
A suicide bomber, driving an explosive-laden water tanker, rammed the vehicle into buildings at a crowded marketplace in Quetta. Previously, police said explosives were packed in a parked water tanker and were remotely detonated.
The South Asian nation, overwhelmingly Sunni, has been beset by sectarian strife and attacks for years.
Mehmood said the attack targeted a Shiite Hazara community. Ethnic Hazaras live mostly in Afghanistan, and there are also Hazara enclaves in Afghanistan and Iran.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf strongly condemned the bombing and vowed to go after the militants.
Earlier this year, a wave of attacks in Quetta left 87 people dead in the Shiite community.
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