Police say suicide bomber kills 7 at hospital in southwest Pakistani city of Quetta

Police: Bomber kills 7 at SW Pakistan hospital

QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a hospital emergency room where Shiite Muslims had gathered Friday to mourn a slain bank manager, killing at least seven people including a journalist in Pakistan’s main southwest city, police said.

The explosion in Quetta underscored the poor security conditions in Pakistan, a U.S. ally where sectarian violence remains a problem even as al-Qaida and Taliban militants pose a growing — and linked — threat. It wasn’t the first time that Shiite mourners have been attacked at hospitals in Pakistan, evidence of a tactic in vogue for their Sunni extremist foes.

Gunshots rang out after the explosion at the Civil Hospital, and rescuers carried away the dead and wounded, TV footage showed.

Among the seven dead was a cameraman working for Pakistan’s Samaa TV, said Saifuddin Khan, a hospital official.

Journalists were at the hospital covering the aftermath of Friday’s morning shooting death of the Shiite bank manager. The emergency room was full of the man’s friends and relatives when the bomber detonated his weapons at the gate, police official Mohammad Sabir said.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, and it is believed to be a major center for the leadership of the Afghan Taliban. However, the violence that occurs in Baluchistan has been blamed on Baluch separatist groups or tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

In February, suspected Sunni militants bombed a bus carrying Shiite worshippers and two hours later attacked a hospital treating the victims, killing 25 people and wounding 100 in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.

And in August 2008, a suicide blast outside the emergency ward of a hospital crowded with Shiite Muslim mourners in the volatile northwest town of Dera Ismail Khan killed at least 27 people, including two police.

Suspected Sunni extremists also have attacked funeral processions of Shiite Muslim mourners.

Extremist Sunnis and Shiites in Pakistan have targeted each other’s leaders in violence that dates well before the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. But several of Pakistan’s Sunni extremist groups also are allied with the Taliban and al-Qaida, who view Shiites as infidels.

The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad dates to the seventh century.