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At least 5 Die in Pakistani Hospital Attack


Gunmen wearing police uniforms stormed a hospital in the northeastern Pakistani city of Lahore late Monday, killing at least five people and taking several patients hostage before escaping.

Earlier reports said at least 12 people had been killed in the shootout with security forces.

Local authorities said most of the victims were policemen. The Jinnah hospital had been treating dozens of people wounded in last Friday's devastating attack on two mosques in the city where members of the minority Ahmadi sect worshipped.

Reuters news agency quoted a hospital official, who declined to be identified, as saying the gunmen were either trying to rescue or kill one of the attackers from Friday's assault who was being treated in an intensive care unit.

Reports from the scene indicated police in Lahore surrounded the hospital, but that the assailants managed to flee.

More than 90 people were killed in last Friday's attack against members of the Ahmadi sect, who consider themselves Muslims but have been banned by the Pakistani government from identifying themselves as followers of Islam.

Earlier Monday, police said a man stabbed an Ahmadi man to death and wounded his son in the town of Narowal, some 80 kilometers northeast of Lahore.

In other violence Monday, officials say security forces killed at least 30 militants in northwestern Orakzai tribal region and bombed several militant hideouts.

The military says several hundred Taliban fighters have been killed in Orakzai since an offensive began there in March.

The death toll could not be independently confirmed because access to the remote area is limited.



Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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