Bombing kills 8 in Shia neighborhood in Pakistan

A roadside bomb blast in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt has killed at least eight people, including three women and a child, in a yet another terror attack targeting minority Shia Muslims in the country.

A roadside bomb blast in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt has killed at least eight people, including three women and a child, in a yet another terror attack targeting minority Shia Muslims in the country.

A senior local government official, Basir Khan Wazir, said an improvised explosive device (IED) was detonated on Tuesday in the mostly Shia-populated Maqbal area of the Kurram tribal district near the Afghan border as a van carrying nine passengers was driving by.

The official said that among the passengers killed in the bombing were three women and a seven-year-old boy.

He said authorities were attempting to identify the mutilated bodies of the victims but primary evidence suggested that all of the passengers had been Shia Muslims.

Although no group has yet claimed responsibility for the terrorist bombing, Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked terrorists have in the past frequently targeted Shias, who make up more than 20 percent of Pakistan’s population.