Shia Muslims chant slogans to condemn the killing of Shia Muslims by gunmen in an ambush in Kurram district during a demonstration in Lahore, Pakistan, on Friday (November 22, 2024).
| Photo Credit: AP

Protesters in Pakistan’s restive northwest chanted anti-government slogans, and tensions flared Friday (November 22, 2024) after funeral prayers were held for 42 Shia Muslims who were ambushed and killed by gunmen a day earlier in one of the region’s deadliest such assaults in recent years.

The victims were traveling in a convoy of several vehicles from the northwestern city of Parachinar to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, when the attack took place Thursday (November 21, 2024). Those killed included six women, and 20 others were injured.

Survivors said the assailants emerged from a vehicle and sprayed the buses and cars with bullets. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack and police have not identified a motive.

Thursday’s (November 21, 2024) attack took place in Kurram, an area where Shia Muslims dominate. Sectarian clashes between the group and Pakistan’s majority Sunni Muslims have killed dozens of people in recent months.

Tribal elder Jalal Bangash said the bodies began arriving in the city Thursday (November 21, 2024) evening. The Shia community group Anjuman Hussainia Parachinar announced three days of mourning.

Coffins were draped in white cloth that bore red calligraphy. It read “Labbaik ya Hussein,” a Shia expression in remembrance of the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, that gave birth to their faith.

Locals carried the coffins aloft through Parachinar as people thronged the streets. Markets, shops, roads and schools were closed. Locals and relatives of the victims staged a sit-in, demanding action against the perpetrators.

Ali Ghulam lost his nephew in the attack.

“He was a very innocent and noble man, only 40, and left behind small kids,” said Ghulam. “He was working to feed his children; he never fought with anyone. Now we are worried about his family and what we will do for them.”

Protests kicked off in parts of the city, with people chanting anti-government slogans. Some people set alight check posts and the gate at the entrance of the city. Elders have called for calm.

A senior police officer said clashes flared after the Parachinar funerals between rival tribes in Kurram, 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Peshawar.

“Sunni and Shia tribes targeted each other’s positions in several areas of the district,” the officer said. “There are some casualties, but we do not have a confirmed number for the dead and injured,” the officer added. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Shia Muslims make up about 15% of the 240 million population of Sunni-majority Pakistan, which has a history of sectarian animosity between the communities.

Although the two groups generally live together peacefully, tensions have existed for decades in some areas, especially in parts of Kurram.

Dozens of people from both sides have been killed since July, when a land dispute erupted in Kurram that later turned into general sectarian violence.

Police officers examine the site of suicide bombing at a highway in Shangla, district in the Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Pakistan’s military on May 7 said a suicide bombing that killed five Chinese engineers and a Pakistani driver in March was planned in neighbouring Afghanistan and that the bomber was an Afghan citizen.

At a news conference, Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Ahmad Sharif said four men behind the March 26 attack in Bisham, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, had been been arrested.

Mr. Sharif said the attack that killed the Chinese engineers, who were working on Pakistan’s biggest Dasu Dam, was an attempt to harm friendship between Pakistan and China. Thousands of Chinese are working on projects relating to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Mr. Sharif also said Pakistani Taliban who have sanctuaries in Afghanistan were behind a surge in attacks inside Pakistan since January in which 62 security forces were killed around the country. He said the Afghan Taliban had failed to honour promises they made to the international community before coming to power, vowing no one would be allowed to use Afghan soil for attacks against any country.

There was no immediate comment from the Afghan Taliban government, which has previously denied such allegations.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

Mr. Sharif said Pakistan had solid evidence about TTP involvement in violence in the country.

He also vowed that no foreigner living in Pakistan without valid documents would be allowed to stay, and 563,639 Afghans living illegally had gone back to Afghanistan since last year, when Islamabad launched a crackdown on illegal migrants.

He said Pakistan’s military had completed 98% of a fence being constructed along the border with Afghanistan. He said 91% of a fence along the Iranian border had also been completed to check illegal movement, curb smuggling and prevent cross-border militant attacks.

Afghanistan has never recognized the porous border that runs through the heartland of the Pashtun, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group.

The army spokesman also dismissed media reports about the possibility of any deal or talks with the country’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan or his party. Khan is serving multiple prison sentences on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and marriage law violations.