99 Killed, 104 Injured in 16 Bomb Attacks in Pakistan in January
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - At least 99 people were killed and 104 others injured in 16 bomb blasts across Pakistan during the first month of 2015.
The number of bomb attacks dropped due to the on-going military operation against the militants in northwest restive tribal region of the country, according to official figures and local media reports.
Out of the total 16 bomb attacks, two were of suicide nature that killed at least 61 people and injured 53 others at two different areas of the country.
According to the figures, the number of killings in bomb attacks in January 2015 was almost nine times higher than the causalities occurred in December in 2014.
The month-on-month basis comparison showed that the number of killings in bomb explosions in January 2015 dropped by almost 42 percent when compared to the number of killings in the same month last year.
The worst attack of the month came on Jan. 30, when a suicide bomber exploded his jacket amid Shiite worshipers when they were offering their Friday prayer at a mosque in the country's southern district of Shikarpur. The attack killed at least 61 people and left 50 others injured.
A banned militant group Jundallah, which pledged its support for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) last year claimed responsibility for the attack. The banned group based in the country's northwestern tribal regions at Pakistan-Afghanistan border has claimed a number of attacks, especially on security forces and Shiite Muslims.
In another incident on Jan. 9, at least eight people were killed and 25 others injured when some unknown miscreants bombed a religious center of Shiite Muslims in the country's garrison city of Rawalpindi, a sister city of capital Islamabad.
The bomb was planted in the rainwater drainage pipe outside the center and it was detonated with a remote-controlled device. The explosion of high intensity destroyed the center and damaged nearby houses.
The major bomb attacks are considered to be the reaction of the Pakistan army's on-going operation Zarb-e-Azb against the militants in the northwestern region, which was launched in June last year.
According to official figures, more than 2,200 militants and 200 soldiers have been killed so far in the military operation launched on June 15, 2014 against foreign and local terrorists hiding in North Waziristan, once the stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban.
The operation was launched after the failure of peace talks and a deadly attack at the country's busiest airport in southern port city of Karachi on June 8, 2014 in which at least 40 people including 10 terrorists were killed.
The Pakistan army claimed to have recaptured and cleared more than 90 percent area of the region and have also destroyed hundreds of hideouts, including bomb making factories and command and control centers of the terrorists. Regarding the number of causalities, Pakistan's southern Sindh province was the worst hit with one suicide attack and one planted bomb blast that killed 63 people and injured 51 others.
Militants carried out six bomb attacks in northwestern tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, which killed 21 people and left 16 others wounded. The eastern province of Punjab that usually remained unhurt was the third most hit area where two explosions killed eight persons and injured 28 others.
The southwestern province of Balochistan stood fourth with six attacks that left seven persons killed and nine others wounded. The northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where terrorists killed over 150 students in a school on Dec. 16 last year remained unhurt during the month of January.
