Bomb Attack on Pakistan Lawmaker’s Convoy Kills Dozens
By SALMAN MASOODMAY 12, 2017
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At least 25 people were killed
and 30 others were wounded when the convoy of a senior Pakistani politician was hit by a bomb in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, officials said.
But Pakistani officials have generally been skeptical, saying
that local militant cells who swear allegiance to the Islamic State but have little or no operational link to the main group have been behind most of the attacks.
Amir Rana, a security analyst who is the director of Pak Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad-based
think tank, also took a skeptical view of the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.
Mr. Haideri’s convoy was hit after Friday Prayer, and television news networks broadcast images
of his white sport utility vehicle charred and mangled from the force of the explosion.
This is the first attack believed to have targeted him,
but the party’s leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, has survived at least three assassination attempts, most recently in 2014 in Quetta, the provincial capital.
He said that a breakaway faction of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned extremist Sunni group, was inspired by the Islamic State
and had been active in the area, and speculated that those militants might have been involved.