Nearly 50 Killed in Terrorist Attacks across Pakistan

Nearly 30 people were killed in two separate blasts on Friday that targeted shoppers in a busy market in the northeastern city of Parachinar.
 
Some 120 people were also wounded in the attacks, which took place three minutes from each other. Most of those killed were Muslims buying food for iftar, the meal that marks the end of their daily fasting in the holy month of Ramadan.
 
There was no claim of responsibility for the attacks in Parachinar, a city which lies just near the border with Afghanistan.
 
That was not the only incident targeting Muslims in Pakistan on Friday as four police officers were shot dead while observing iftar in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and financial capital.
 
Also on Friday, almost 15 people were killed in a car bomb blast in the southwestern city of Quetta, a key city in Balochistan province. Seven police officers were killed in the attack after they stopped the explosive-laden vehicle to search it at a checkpoint.
 
The ISIS Takfiri terrorists and Jamaat ur Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed the attack in Quetta in messages sent to the media. The two terror groups have a history of jointly claiming such attacks.
 
Also on Friday, four police officers were killed by gunmen on motorcycles as they left a hotel in Karachi after eating iftar, the dinner to break the Ramadan fast.
 
Source in Pakistan say the death toll is higher than the official count as some of the victims succumbed to their injuries later.
 
Prime minister Nawaz Sharif called for security to be beefed up across the country as he condemned the attack, saying that no Muslim could ever imagine committing such a horrific act..
 
Despite continued bloodshed, there has been a marked decrease in violence in Pakistan in recent years. Deaths declined by almost two-thirds between 2014 and 2016.
 
Last year, 1,803 people were killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistan, about 600 of them civilians, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.