Pakpattan Blast

PAKPATTAN: At least eight people have been martyred and 14 others wounded as an explosion took place at the shrine of Hazrat Baba Fareed on Monday morning.

The blast occurred immediately after Fajr prayers. The authorities closed the shrine for visitors soon after the explosion.

Four women were also included among the victims who lost their lives. One wall of the shrine was destroyed in the explosion.


According to initial reports, two men left a motorcycle at the back door of the shrine and the explosion took place after six to seven minutes of their departure from the spot.

Eyewitnesses said that both of the suspected men were 28-30 years old.

Several people were present on the scene when deadly explosion occurred in the shrine

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid on Gaza

Two Palestinians were killed and two others wounded early on Sunday in an Israeli airstrike on the northern Gaza Strip, witnesses and medical sources said.

The witnesses said the four were hit in an area near the Sodaneya neighbourhood of the northern Gaza Strip as they were trying to launch a homemade projectile from the area at southern Israel. The witnesses

added that a huge explosion was heard in the area before dawn and they found one Palestinians killed and three wounded, one of them in critical condition. Ambulances were immediately called to scene and evacuated them to hospital.

Hamas security sources said the identity of the militants was not immediately known.

Adham Abu Selmeya, spokesman of the medical services in Hamas-run health ministry, told reporters that one of the wounded later died in hosptial. The other two were in moderate condition.

Leaders of various Palestinian factions, including Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip and its rival Fatah movement of President Mahmoud Abbas, held a meeting in Gaza on Saturday to study a unified position towards the current Israeli measures in the West Bank.

Meanwhile the Israeli military issued a statement confirming the attack, in which the forces had struck “a squad of terror operatives who were preparing to fire rockets from the Northern Gaza strip into Israel.”

At least 17 people killed in Pakistan's Karachi

KARACHI (Reuters) - Pre-election violence killed at least 17 people in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi in several attacks, the provincial health minister said on Sunday.

The by-election for a seat in the provincial assembly will be held on Sunday after a lawmaker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was killed by gunmen in August, triggering violence which killed 100 people in a week.
MQM is the most influential party in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city and commercial hub.
Karachi has a long history of ethnic, religious and sectarian violence. It was a main target of al Qaeda-linked militants after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, when Pakistan joined the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, and foreigners were attacked in the city several times.

Aside from the challenge of trying to contain violence in Karachi, Pakistan's government faces a stubborn Taliban insurgency and the task of reconstructing areas devastated by summer floods which inflicted $9.7 billion in damage and are likely to strain the fragile economy for several years.
Mohammad Saghir, Sindh province's health minister, told Reuters that Saturday night's attacks were targeted killings.
He said groups of gunmen in several parts of Karachi attacked people belonging to ethnic and political groups to "ruin the peace of this city." About 40 people were wounded, he said.
Several hundred people have been killed in targeted attacks since the start of this year.