Pakistan attack: Gunmen open fire at moving bus, kill four Shiite Muslim women

Gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a moving bus in Pakistan and killed four women from the Shiite Muslim minority in an apparent sectarian attack, officials said Tuesday.

Gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a moving bus in Pakistan and killed four women from the Shiite Muslim minority in an apparent sectarian attack, officials said Tuesday.

The gunmen sprayed the vehicle with bullets in the outskirts of Quetta city, the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan.

QambarDashti, Quetta city commissioner, confirmed the attack and said it could be sectarian.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Taliban militants have attacked Shiite Hazaras in the past.

Sectarian violence – in particular by Sunni hardliners against Shiites who make up roughly 20 percent of Pakistan’s 200 million people – has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade.