Violence blamed on political and ethnic tensions in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, has killed 33 people in consecutive nights of bloody murders, officials said yesterday.
The killings have been blamed on loyalists of former coalition partners the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP), which represent different ethnic communities and straddle volatile political fault lines.
They underscore deep insecurity in the country’s economic hub used by NATO to ship supplies to Afghanistan. The city is also plagued by sectarian killings, crime and kidnappings.
“We have received reports that another nine people have fallen victim to targeted killings overnight, putting the death toll at 33 in two days,” said Sharfuddin Memon, a home ministry official in the southern province of Sindh.
He said police were hunting those involved and had detained several suspects since Wednesday.
A security official said several western neighborhoods were still tense and sounds of intermittent gunfire could still be heard.
Local residents complained they were virtually confined to their homes because of indiscriminate firing.
“Many people here had run out of their food stocks. There is no milk for children and no chance of patients being shifted to hospitals for treatment,” said Mohammad Asghar, a schoolteacher in the Orangi area. “We are left at the mercy of trigger-happy scoundrels and the security forces are conspicuous by their absence.”
However, Memon said police and paramilitary were on patrol in the troubled neighborhoods.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says 490 people have been killed in targeted killings so far this year, compared with 748 last year and 272 in 2009.
This week it blamed the government, led by the Pakistan People’s Party of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari for failing to stop the killings.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not