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At least 80 killed in Lahore attacks
By: cnn.comPosted On: 05/28/2010 12:15 P
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Attacks with bombs and firearms in Pakistan, targeting houses of worship for a persecuted religious minority, killed at least 80 people Friday, a senior government official said.
Attacks with bombs and firearms in Pakistan, targeting houses of worship for a persecuted religious minority, killed at least 80 people Friday, a senior government official said.
The strikes took place at two mosques in Lahore belonging to the Ahmadi religious group, police and rescue officials said.
At the Baitul Noor place of worship in the Model Town region, two attackers on motorbikes fired at the entrance of the building and tossed hand grenades, a rescue official told CNN. Police said one of the attackers is critically injured. The other, clad in a suicide jacket, was detained.
At a mosque in the Garhi Shahu neighborhood, one witness told CNN he saw two attackers armed with AK-47s, and another witness said he saw at least four gunmen. Sajjad Bhutta, the senior official, said the heads of three suicide bombers were discovered there.
Bhutta said more than 70 people were injured in the violence.
Ahmadis regard themselves as Muslim. But the government says they aren't, and many Muslim extremists have targeted them. Sunni and Shia Muslims do not regard followers of the religion as Muslims because they do not regard Mohammed as the last prophet sent by God.
The movement was founded in 1889. Its followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) was sent by God as a prophet "to end religious wars, condemn bloodshed and reinstitute morality, justice and peace," the worldwide Ahmadi group says.
The group, which is thought to number between 3 million and 4 million people in the country, endures "the most severe legal restrictions and officially sanctioned discrimination" among Pakistan's religious minorities, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The commission, an independent, bipartisan U.S. government body, said in its latest annual report that "Ahmadis may not call their places of worship 'mosques,' worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms which are otherwise open to all Muslims, perform the Muslim call to prayer, use the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quote from the Koran, or display the basic affirmation of the Muslim faith."
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