Pakistan 'nabs' dozens over Shia killings
Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:50:22 GMT
Pakistani security forces have reportedly detained dozens of extremists involved in the slaughter of Shia Muslims in the country's lawless northwest.
Wahhabi-minded insurgents on Sunday shot dead at least three Shia Muslims and wounded nine others in northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, some 270 km (170 miles) southwest of Islamabad.
On Monday, the security personnel is also said to have arrested around 60 militants across the town following the deadly attack.
Countless incidents of massacres happened in Dera Ismail Khan and Kurram Agency over some past months.
In mid February, some 35 Shias were killed and 65 others were injured after a bomb ripped through a Shia Muslim leader's funeral procession on in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan.
A string of sectarian attacks on Shia Muslims in recent months has undermined already deteriorating security in the nuclear-armed country.
This is while the Taliban-linked Wahhabi groups in Parachinar, Hangu district and much of the Kurram tribal agency have been killing dozens of Shia Muslims on a daily basis over the past few months.
Some local sources say more than 2,000 Shia community members have been killed in the region since 2007.
The Pakistani media has warned against religious violence which has defamed the conflict-torn country.
"Taliban have gone about slaughtering their fellow-Muslims, especially in targeting the Shias of Kurram and Dera Ismail Khan. Also, it has to be said - and rather unfortunately - that this kind of Talibanization has been happening in the rest of the country..., albeit in a slightly different manner," The News said in a report in early May.
Shias say they make up one-third of Pakistan's 160 million-strong population. Since the 1980s, thousands of people have been killed in violence-related incidents in Pakistan by extremist groups.
