Gulf Today :
At least 16 people, including three women and two children, were killed in a fresh sectarian clash in Pakistan’s northwest, officials said.
Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribes have been engaged in intermittent fighting for several months in the Kurram district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Kurram, formerly a semi-autonomous area, has a history of bloody confrontations between tribes belonging to the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam that have claimed hundreds of lives over the years.
A convoy of Sunnis was travelling under the protection of paramilitary soldiers on Saturday when they came under attack, a senior Kurram administration official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.
“As a result, 14 people, including 3 women and 2 children, were killed, and six others were wounded,” he said.
Frontier police responded and killed two of the attackers, who were identified as Shiites, the official said.
Border police later intervened and killed two of the attackers, identified as Shiite militants. Sunni and Shiite Muslim tribes have been engaged in intermittent fighting in Kurram district for several months.
The area, once a semi-autonomous area, has been the scene of bloody clashes between tribes belonging to the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam, which have killed hundreds over the years.
Recent clashes in July and September killed dozens and ended only after a local jirga, or tribal council, called a ceasefire. Authorities are trying to broker a new truce.
The Shiite community in Pakistan, a country with a majority Sunni Muslim population, has long faced discrimination and violence.