Pakistan army kills senior militant wanted for targeting Shiites
Islamist militants have killed thousands of people in Pakistan since early 2000s, in their bid to impose a hardline version of Islam
Pakistan’s military has killed a senior member of Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) along two suicide bombers in a raid in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, the army’s media wing said on Thursday.
A military intelligence officer was killed and four other soldiers wounded during the operation targeting Salman Badeni, the Baluchistan region chief of LeJ, on the outskirts of provincial capital Quetta.
Badeni had been “involved in killings of over 100 innocent personnel of Hazara Community and police”, the army said in a statement.
The military also released pictures of a blood-spattered militant laying dead on the ground, along with photos of ammunition and what appears to be bomb-making material.
LeJ, a group which subscribes to the hardline Takfiri Deobandi school of Islam, considers Shiite apostates and has carried out scores of bloody bomb and gun attacks in Baluchistan over the past two decades, most of them aimed at the Shiite Hazara community.
Earlier this month members of the Hazara community went on a hunger strike in Quetta to protest a recent spate of killings targeting them and to demand greater protection in the resource-rich province that has been plagued by violence and insurgency.