BBC<\/p>\n
At least 18 people have been killed and 27 injured in a suicide attack on a Sufi Muslim shrine in Pakistan’s south-western province of Baluchistan.<\/p>\n
Crowds of devotees had gathered for a religious ceremony in Jhal Magsi, near the provincial capital Quetta.<\/p>\n
The bomber reportedly detonated his explosives after being stopped at the gate of the shrine by a policeman. The officer was killed.<\/p>\n
So-called Islamic State (IS) later said it was behind the attack.<\/p>\n
The IS news outlet Amaq called it “a martyrdom operation”.<\/p>\n
Sufi shrines have been increasingly targeted by Islamist extremists who view Sufism as heretical.<\/p>\n
“The suicide bomber struck outside the shrine at a time when it was packed with people attending anniversary celebrations of Syed Cheesal Shah,” said local official Asad Kakar, referring to a Sufi saint.<\/p>\n
The police officer’s actions in stopping the bomber entering the shrine reduced the number of casualties, Baluchistan home minister Sarfraz Bugti told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Security forces have sealed off the building, Pakistani media reported.<\/p>\n
In February at least 80 people were killed\u00a0in an attack on a shrine in Sehwan in southern Sindh province. So-called Islamic State said it was behind that attack.<\/p>\n
Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam which spread throughout the Indian subcontinent in the 13th Century.<\/p>\n
Sufis believe in saints who can intercede for them directly with God. Several million Muslims in Pakistan are believed to follow Sufism’s tenets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC At least 18 people have been killed and 27 injured in a suicide attack on a Sufi Muslim shrine in Pakistan’s south-western province of Baluchistan. Crowds of devotees had gathered for a religious ceremony in Jhal Magsi, near the provincial capital Quetta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[22,13,23],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-post","tag-baluchistan","tag-pakistan","tag-sufi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}