Lahore suicide blast kills 13

A group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, one of several splinter factions from the Pakistani Taliban, said it had carried out the attack.

Pakistani policemen and volunteers move an injured blast victim from a blast site after a powerful explosion in Lahore on February 13, 2017. AFP / ARIF ALI

Lahore // At least 13 people were killed and dozens wounded when a suicide bomber attacked police escorting a protest rally in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday.

The blast ripped through the crowd of hundreds of pharmacists, who were protesting new amendments to a law governing drug sales. Six police officers, including a former provincial counterterrorism chief, were among those killed, police said.

A group called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said it carried out the attack in a text message, saying it was revenge for Pakistani military operations against militants in tribal regions along the Afghan border.

The group, which claimed a number of large attacks last year, is one of several splinter factions from the Pakistani Taliban, which has repeatedly targeted security forces and religious minorities.

Sameer Ahmad, the Lahore deputy commissioner, said at least 13 people were killed and 58 wounded, including nine who were in critical condition.

Live TV covering the protest showed a loud bang and showed smoke and fire billowing up as people ran away, some of them carrying the wounded.

“We just couldn’t understand what happened,” Tufail Nabi told local Geo News TV. “It was as if some big building collapsed,” he said as he limped away.

Lahore, the country’s cultural capital, suffered one of Pakistan’s deadliest attacks during 2016, a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar suicide bomb in a park over Easter that killed more than 70 — including many children.

But such incidents have been rare in the city in recent years, with security across Pakistan improving dramatically in 2015 and 2016 after the military launched a crackdown on extremism backed by a government-led National Action Plan.

prime minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to continue fighting terrorism “until we liberate our people of this cancer and avenge those who have laid down their lives for us.”

Elsewhere in Pakistan, a roadside bomb killed two members of bomb disposal squad on the outskirts of the south-western city of Quetta, said police officer Abdur Razzaq Cheema. Another eight people were wounded, he said. A Taliban-linked group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, said it planted the bomb.

*Associated Press and Agence France-Presse