Ahmadis Attacked: Gunmen Kill 20 in Attacks on Sect Mosques in Pakistan's Lahore

Ahmadiyya Times UPDATE: 68 KILLED SO FAR: Two men wearing bombs approached vehicles in the convoy as it drove through an area where army officers live and work.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Staff |  Pakistan
Source & Credit: San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, May 28, 2010

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Militants armed with guns and grenades attacked two mosques of the Ahmadi sect of Islam in the Pakistani eastern city of Lahore today, killing 20 people.

Attackers took up positions in one of the minarets of a mosque in the city's Garhi Shahu area and threw grenades at armed policemen who tried to move in, Pakistani television channels reported from the scene. At least 30 people were injured in the twin strikes, Faisal Jalal, a spokesman for the Edhi rescue service, said by phone from Lahore.


Gunmen also hit a mosque about seven kilometers (four miles) to the south in the city's Model Town, an upper class neighborhood where former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has a home. Thousands of worshippers, including women and children, were at Friday prayers when the raids at the two mosques began, Salim Uddin, a spokesman for the community said by phone from Rabwah, a city 145 kilometers south of Lahore and the headquarters of the Ahmadi sect.

Garhi Shahu is in central Lahore, and the attack took place less than two kilometers from the official residence of the Punjab provincial governor.

The Ahmadi sect founded in Lahore in the late 1800s claims hundreds of thousands of Pakistani adherents, however Pakistani law declares them non-Muslims and extremist groups of the majority Sunni sect -- including Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Punjab-based group -- have attacked Ahmadi mosques and leaders over the past two decades.

Pakistan's army has been fighting Taliban militants across its northwestern tribal belt since it sent 28,000 troops into the region of South Waziristan in October. The militants hit back with a string of bomb and gun attacks in major cities that killed hundreds of people.

Two suicide bombers on March 12 attacked an army convoy in Lahore, killing at least 53 people and injuring 95 in the second attack on the city in a week.

Two men wearing bombs approached vehicles in the convoy as it drove through an area where army officers live and work.

A suicide car bomb outside a police building in Lahore killed 12 people on March 8, the first attack in the city this year and ending a relative lull in raids on Pakistan's urban centers.

--With assistance by James Rupert ion New Delhi. Editors: Mark Williams, Naween A. Mangi

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