{"id":18175,"date":"2024-11-22T06:25:23","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T06:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18175"},"modified":"2024-11-22T06:25:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T06:25:23","slug":"more-than-40-dead-after-gunmen-attack-passenger-vehicles-in-pakistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=18175","title":{"rendered":"More than 40 dead after gunmen attack passenger vehicles in Pakistan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At least 41 people – including women and children – have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a convoy of 200 passenger vehicles traveling through a remote area of Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The vehicles were attacked as they travelled through the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, according to the area’s deputy police commissioner.<\/p>\n

The gunmen initially targeted the convoy’s police escort, the provincial spokesman said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Police were protecting the convoy following months of sectarian violence in the area, which has claimed dozens of lives this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police have told the BBC that 41 people were killed in Thursday’s attack and an additional 16 more were critically injured.<\/p>\n

Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told Reuters news agency the attack was “a major tragedy”, with the death toll “likely to rise”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Saeeda Bano – who was in the middle of the convoy – described to BBC Urdu how she feared she would be killed as she hid under the car seats with her children during the attack.<\/p>\n

When the gunfire finally stopped after several minutes, she saw injured people and bodies lying in the road.<\/p>\n

Details of exactly what happened are still emerging, but Javed ullah Mehsud, a senior administration official, told AFP “approximately 10 attackers” were involved, “firing indiscriminately from both sides of the road”.<\/p>\n

Women and children had hidden in nearby houses, while police hunted for the attackers, he added.<\/p>\n

Most the passengers travelling in the convoy through the mountainous area were Shia, he said in an earlier statement.<\/p>\n

Sunni and Shia Muslim tribes have clashed repeatedly this year. An earlier series of attacks ended after a tribal council called for a ceasefire, according to Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Then last month, there was another attack on passenger vehicles along a road in the region which killed 15 people. <\/p>\n

The road Thursday’s convoy was travelling along had only reopened in recent days, with travel limited to convoys with police protection.<\/p>\n

Sectarian violence is often linked to land disputes in the region.<\/p>\n

However, Kurram, in Pakistan’s north-west, also borders several Afghan provinces which are home to anti-Shia militant groups, including the Islamic State group and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/em> www.bbc.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 41 people – including women and children – have been killed after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a convoy of 200 passenger vehicles traveling through a remote area of Pakistan. The vehicles were attacked as they travelled through the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, according to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}