December 30, 2009

Pakistan Dispatch: Watch this space

The BBC reports that thousands of people turned up for the funerals of victims of the suicide attack on Shia worshippers in Karachi.

...Keep watching this space.

UPDATE: AFP reports that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Also, Karachi is still on fire after angry Shia rampaged following the bomb.

"We carried out the suicide bombing in Karachi," Asmatullah Shaheen, a top militant commander based in South Waziristan, told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. Shaheen, whose name is on a government list of 19 most-wanted militants, said "he (the bomber) was our man; his name was Hasnain Muawia".

Interestingly, Muawia is the name of the first caliph of the Umayyad Dynasty. He fought Ali, the Prophet Mohammed's cousin, who is revered by Shia as his rightful successor. Muawia's son Yazid is seen as the villain in the events that led to the death of the prophet's grandson Hussain. The Shia worshippers targeted by the Taliban were commemorating Hussain's death at the hands of Yazid's forces when the bomber struck.