Market Blast Kills at Least 16 in Pakistan

An explosion in a market in Quetta, Pakistan, killed at least 16 people on Friday, and wounded another 30, police said. It’s the latest attack targeting the city’s minority Shi’ite Hazara community, to which seven of the dead belonged. Hazaras go the market every day with a police escort. “They were at the market as police and [paramilitary] Frontier Corps soldiers patrolled the area,” Quetta Police Chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema, told Al Jazeera. He added that it was unknown whether the explosion was due to a hidden bomb or a suicide attack, although it was likely that the device had been in a potato sack. Since 2013, roughly 500 Shi’ites, mainly from the Hazara community, have been killed in targeted attacks in Balochistan Province, according to government data. The majority of attacks have been in Quetta, where most of the country’s Hazaras reside.