At least 38 people were killed and 29 were injured after gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, said.
Sources say it could be a sectarian attack as most of the killed were people from the Shiya community.
The attack took place in the Kurram tribal district. Victims included a woman and a child, Chaudhry said, adding: “It’s a major tragedy and death toll is likely to rise.”
“There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and another from Parachinar to Peshawar, when armed men opened fire on them,” a resident of Parachinar, Ziarat Hussain told Reuters.
“Both convoys consisted of around 40 vehicles traveling under police escort,” a police officer told AFP.
“Initial reports confirm that the victims include six women, several children, and police officers,” Javed ullah Mehsud, a senior administration official, said.
“Approximately 10 attackers were involved in both incidents, firing indiscriminately from both sides of the road,” Mehsud was quoted as saying.
He added that “women and children sought refuge in local houses, and we are currently searching for (the attackers) in the area”.
No group claimed responsibility for the incident. President Asif Ali Zardari, in a statement, strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles.
Sunni and Shiite Muslim
Javed ullah Mehsud told AFP, “Two separate convoys of Shiite people… were targeted by the terrorists in the Kurram district.”
“Initial reports suggest it was the same sectarian issue that has plagued the region for months,” he said in an earlier statement, adding that most of the victims were Shia.
Tensions have existed for decades between armed Shia and Sunni Muslims over a land dispute in the tribal area that borders Afghanistan.
In October, at least 16 people, including three women and two children, were killed in a sectarian clash in the district.
Previous clashes in July and September killed dozens of people and ended only after a jirga, or tribal council called a ceasefire.