Suicide bombers kill 78 at Pakistan church

Pakistanis help victims of a suicide attack at a church in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. A suicide bomb attack on the historic church killed at least 78 people on Sunday, officials said, in one of the worst assaults on the country’s Christian minority in years. AP PHOTO/MOHAMMAD SAJJAD

PESHAWAR—A twin suicide bombing killed at least 78 people at a church service in northwest Pakistan on Sunday in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Christians in the country.

The two attackers struck at the end of a service at All Saints Church in Peshawar, the main town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which has borne the brunt of a bloody Islamist insurgency in recent years.

Federal interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said at least 78 people had died and 11 out of more than 100 wounded were in a critical condition.

“There are 34 women and seven children among the dead,” Khan told reporters in Peshawar, adding that the federal government had announced a three-day period of national mourning.

Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban movement claimed responsibility, saying it had set up a new faction, Junood ul-Hifsa, to kill foreigners to avenge US drone strikes on Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.

“We carried out the suicide bombings at Peshawar church and will continue to strike foreigners and non-Muslims until drone attacks stop,” Ahmad Marwat, a spokesman for the group, told AFP by telephone.

In June, the group claimed responsibility for killing 10 foreign climbers at a base camp of Nanga Parbat, the second-highest mountain in Pakistan after K-2.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the “cruel” attack, saying it violated the tenets of Islam.

Pope Francis also spoke out against the violence, calling it “a bad choice of hatred and war.”

Sahibzada Anees, one of Peshawar’s most senior officials, told reporters the bombers struck when the service had just ended.

“We are in an area which is a target of terrorism and within that area there was a special security arrangement for the church. We are in a rescue phase and once it is over we will investigate what went wrong,” Anees said.

Former minister for inter-faith harmony Paul Bhatti and provincial lawmaker Fredrich Azeem Ghauri both said the attack was the deadliest ever targeting Christians in Pakistan.

The small and largely impoverished Christian community suffers discrimination in the overwhelmingly Muslim-majority nation but bombings against them are extremely rare.

Schoolteacher Nazir Khan, 50, said at least 400 worshippers were greeting each other after the service when there was a huge explosion.

“A huge blast threw me on the floor and as soon as I regained my senses, a second blast took place and I saw wounded people everywhere,” Khan told AFP.

An AFP reporter saw shreds of human flesh and bloodstains on the walls and floor of the church, whose windows had been ripped out by the blast.

Pages of a Bible were scattered near the altar and rice meals mingled with dust on the floor amid shattered benches. Walls were gouged with ball bearings used in the explosives, he said.

Grieving relatives blocked the main Grand Trunk Road highway with bodies of the victims to protest against the killings, an AFP reporter said.

‘Christians will fear for their lives’

Christians in Karachi, Lahore, Multan and other cities also staged protest rallies to condemn the attacks and demand state protection for their lives and properties, AFP reporters said.

In the southern port city of Karachi angry protesters clashed with police when they tried to clear a road in Isa Nagri, a low-income Christian neighborhood.

Pakistan’s Ulema Council, an association of leading Muslim scholars, branded the attack as “shameful.”

Sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims is on the rise in Pakistan but Sunday’s bombings will fuel fears that the already beleaguered Christian community could be increasingly targeted.

Islamist militants have carried out hundreds of bombings targeting security forces and minority Muslim groups they regard as heretical, but attacks on Christians have previously largely been confined to grenade attacks and occasional riots.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a deeply conservative province bordering the tribal districts along the Afghan frontier which are home to Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants.

Provincial lawmaker Ghauri said there were about 200,000 Christians in the province, of whom 70,000 lived in Peshawar.

“Now after this attack Christians across Pakistan will fear for their lives,” he warned.

Only around two percent of the country’s population of 180 million are Christian. The community complains of growing discrimination.

Christians have a precarious existence in Pakistan, often living in slum-like “colonies” cheek-by-jowl with Muslims and fearful of allegations of blasphemy, a sensitive subject that can provoke outbursts of public violence.

In the town of Gojra in Punjab province in 2009, a mob burned 77 houses and killed seven people after rumurs that a copy of the Islamic holy book the Koran had been desecrated during a Christian marriage ceremony.

Rimsha Masih, a Christian girl who was arrested for alleged blasphemy last year, fled to Canada with her family in June after the charges were dropped.—S. H. Khan