LAHORE, Pakistan — Islamist gunmen and a suicide squad lobbed grenades, sprayed bullets from atop a minaret and took hostages Friday in attacks on two mosques packed with worshipers from a minority sect in Pakistan.
At least 80 people were killed and dozens wounded.
The strikes — the deadliest against the Ahmadi community — highlight the threat to minority religious groups by the same militants who have repeatedly attacked Pakistan’s U.S.-allied government and threatened to destabilize the nuclear-armed nation.
The tactics echoed those militants have used against government, foreign and security targets in Pakistan, but they had never before been directed against a religious minority.
Two teams of heavily armed attackers — seven men in total — staged the raids minutes apart, seizing hostages and apparently planning to fight to the death. Three died when they detonated their suicide vests. Two were captured.
“It was like a war going on around me,” said Luqman Ahmad, a survivor. “The cries I heard sent chills down my spine.”
Shiite Muslims have borne the brunt of suicide bombings and targeted killings for years in Sunni-majority Pakistan, though Christians and Ahmadis have also faced violence.
The long-standing sectarian violence in the country has been exacerbated by the rise of the Sunni extremist Taliban and al-Qaeda movements.
Pakistan’s Geo TV channel said the Punjab province branch of the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility; however, repeated attempts by The Associated Press to reach the group were not successful.
Ahmadis are reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect’s founder was a savior foretold by the Koran, Islam’s holy book. The group has experienced years of state-sanctioned discrimination and occasional attacks by radical Sunni Muslims in Pakistan, but never before in such a large-scale, sophisticated fashion.
