Pakistani police say 63 people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in a bombing targeting Shi'ites in southwestern Pakistan.
A senior police officer says the bomb was detonated Saturday by remote control in a Shi'ite-dominated area of the city of Quetta. He says most of the victims were Shi'ite, and that women and children were among those killed.
A spokesman for the banned Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the blast.
Saturday's attack was the worst in Quetta since a series of bombings on January 10 in a Shi'ite-dominated area of the city killed 92 people. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi also claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where the Shi'ite minority has been attacked several times in recent months in sectarian violence.
Islamic militants and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi fighters are active in the province. Baluch nationalist groups are fighting an insurgency there to try to gain a greater share of income from the province's gas and mineral resources.
Sectarian violence claimed more than 400 lives in Pakistan last year.
###
A senior police officer says the bomb was detonated Saturday by remote control in a Shi'ite-dominated area of the city of Quetta. He says most of the victims were Shi'ite, and that women and children were among those killed.
A spokesman for the banned Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the blast.
Saturday's attack was the worst in Quetta since a series of bombings on January 10 in a Shi'ite-dominated area of the city killed 92 people. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi also claimed responsibility for those attacks.
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, where the Shi'ite minority has been attacked several times in recent months in sectarian violence.
Islamic militants and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi fighters are active in the province. Baluch nationalist groups are fighting an insurgency there to try to gain a greater share of income from the province's gas and mineral resources.
Sectarian violence claimed more than 400 lives in Pakistan last year.
###