Pakistani Taliban attack two mosques in Lahore, target Muslim sect

ISLAMABAD: At least 75 people were killed and 108 injured, 25 of them seriously, when two groups of fidayeen attackers belonging to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacked two mosques of the minority Muslim Ahmadiyya community in the Model Town and Garhi Shahu areas of Lahore.

Thousands of worshippers, including women and children, were at Friday prayers when the raids at the mosques began.

The Ahmadiyya community, also called the Qadiani community, was declared non-Muslim in Pakistan in 1974. Since then, the sect has experienced years of state-sanctioned discrimination and occasional attacks by extremist Sunnis. Its four million-odd members have seen their religious rights curtailed by law.

Usually described as the heart of Punjab, Lahore, the province’s capital, has witnessed a series of fidayeen (suicide) attacks in recent months, almost all of which were carried out by the TTP.

It is for the first time in recent years, however, that any Ahmadiyya place of worship has been attacked, that too on such a large scale and in coordinated fashion. The Hakeemullah Mehsud-led TTP has claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Numerous explosions were heard at the mosques and gunfire continued for hours, with images of at least two gunmen firing at the police from the roof of one of the mosques.

Police said gunmen opened fire shortly after Friday prayers and threw grenades at the mosques, which are in residential neighbourhoods, one upscale (Model Town) and the other a heavily congested part of the walled city.

At least a dozen heavily armed fidayeen attackers carrying hand grenades and automatic weapons, with some wearing suicide bombers' jackets, stormed the mosques in two groups of seven and five. They hurled grenades and fired at worshippers.

The majority of those killed were at the Garhi Shahu mosque. Two senior superintendents of the Lahore police were seriously injured during gun battles with the attackers.

At the Garhi Shahu mosque, the attackers took many worshippers hostage and assumed control of the building. The police took almost three hours to kill the attackers and take control of the mosque.

Some police officers said two attackers at the Garhi Shahu mosque blew themselves up to avoid capture. One attacker at the Model Town mosque was arrested. He was seriously injured and taken to the Jinnah hospital.