ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - At least four people have been killed in an attack targeting Christians in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, officials say, the latest violence to target members of the minority in the South Asian country.

The four men, all members of the same Christian family, were shot to death outside a relative's home in the Shah Zaman neighbourhood of the city on Monday evening.

"One young girl has been wounded, and four people have been killed, they were all Christians," Ali Mardan, a senior police official, told Al Jazeera by telephone.

The family had travelled to Quetta to celebrate Easter with relatives, a family member told Al Jazeera.

"They were guests of ours, they came from Punjab [province] to celebrate Easter. As they left the house to go to the bazaar after dinner […] they were fired upon," said Tariq Masih, a relative to the victims.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

At least four people were killed in a separate, unrelated shooting incident in Quetta on Monday, officials said.

That incident was related to a personal enmity, police said.

Pakistan has been battling armed groups including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies, who seek to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the country, since 2007.

Violence has dropped in recent years, as a series of military operations have succeeded in displacing the TTP and allied groups from their strongholds in northwestern Pakistan, but sporadic large casualty attacks continue.

Attacks often target Pakistan's minorities, including Shia Muslims as well as Christians, Hindus and members of the Ahmadiyya sect.

In December, a suicide bomb and gun attack targeting Sunday services at a church in Quetta killed at least eight people and left dozens of others wounded.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for that attack in a statement, but provided no proof of its involvement.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, has claimed responsibility for several attacks targeting civilians in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, in recent years, including an attack on a Sufi shrine and multiple attacks on Hazara Shias.

On Sunday, a Hazara Shia man was killed and another wounded in a targeted attack in a Quetta bazaar, local media reported.

In all, at least 242 people were killed in attacks in Balochistan province in 2017, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal research organisation.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera's Web Correspondent in Pakistan. Additional reporting by Saadullah Akhtar in Quetta. </s> The Islamic State Saturday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed 21 people and wounded more than 50 others in Quetta, the provincial capital of Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province. A suicide bomber blew himself in the Hazarganj fruits and vegetable market in Quetta on Friday morning, in an attack believed to be targeting the minority Hazara Shia community.

The ISIS on Saturday released a photograph of the suicide attacker along with his name and said the attack targeted Shia Muslims, according to the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist activities. “The Islamic State’s Khorasan Province (ISKP) claimed killing and wounding 70 Hazara Shias and Pakistani soldiers in a suicide bombing in Quetta,” it said.

The Pakistani officials have repeatedly denied presence of the ISIS in the country, but the Middle Eastern terror group has claimed a number of attacks in the past. On Friday, a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it collaborated with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

The LeJ is a Sunni militant group, which has claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks against the minority Shia community in Pakistan, including the 2013 blasts in Quetta that killed over 200 Hazara Shias. </s> Quetta, Pakistan: The militant group Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for killing four members of a Christian family in southwestern Pakistan.

A statement issued by the group claimed that militants belonging to IS fired on the group of Christians as they were travelling in the city of Quetta, killing four on Monday.

Islamic State has affiliates in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, many drawn from existing Islamist militant groups, who support their vehement sectarian views against Shiite Muslims and non-Muslims.

The family was travelling in a rickshaw when armed men on a motorcycle intercepted them and opened fire in Quetta city, the capital of Baluchistan province.

The family had come to visit relatives in Quetta's Shahzaman road area, where a large number of the city's Christian community lives. </s> In Pakistan, at least 21 people have been killed and 50 others injured in a suicide bombing today in Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. The attack believed to be targeting the Shiite Hazara ethnic minority community.

The explosion happened this morning in the busy wholesale market area of Hazarganj. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. </s> ISIS says it was behind a terrorist attack on a Christian family in Quetta, Pakistan, that killed four people one day after Easter Sunday. The relatives had been riding in a rickshaw when motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire on them.

Three men and a woman died in the attack. A fifth person riding in the rickshaw — a 12-year-old girl — survived and was taken to the hospital, Pakistan's Dawn news agency says.

"By targeting the family on the road, the gunmen found a weak link: Pakistani forces had stepped up security around churches, to stop militants who target Christians on their holiest days. But the roads are still vulnerable.

"The family was traveling in Quetta, a garrison town near the Afghan border. It's the same town where ISIS militants stormed a church compound right before Christmas. They killed nine people."

According to Pakistan's Express Tribune, roughly 2 percent of Pakistan's population is Christian. </s> Bombs killed at least 40 people in Pakistan on Friday, with a suicide car bomber killing 13 in the southwestern city of Quetta, and two blasts later claiming at least 27 lives in the northwestern town of Parachinar, officials said.

A separate gun attack on police in the southern megacity of Karachi killed four officers on Friday evening, a security official said.

Seven police officers were among those killed in the first attack, in Quetta, which happened when police stopped the car to search it at a checkpoint.

Abdul Razzaq Cheema, director general of police in Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is capital, told Reuters the bomber had detonated a car packed with explosives.

At least 13 bodies were taken to hospital, along with 19 wounded people, said Wasim Baig, a spokesman for the Civil Hospital in Quetta. Nine security officials were among the wounded, said Fareed Sumalan, a doctor at the hospital.

Jamaat ur Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a message sent to Reuters by its spokesman, Asad Mansur.

“Our attacks will continue until a true sharia system is enforced in Pakistan,” the spokesman said, referring to Islamic law.

Islamic State (IS) also claimed responsibility for the attack in a message sent to journalists. Jamaat ur Ahrar and IS have jointly claimed responsibility for past attacks in Pakistan.

In the evening, several hundred kilometers to the northeast, two explosions in the town of Parachinar killed at least 27 people and wounded 120, a government official told Reuters.

The blasts were in a market and within three minutes of each other, senior government official Wazir Khan Wazir said. Parachinar is near the border with Afghanistan.

Many people were at the market buying food for iftar, the evening meal with which Muslims break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan ends this weekend.

No group claimed responsibility for the Parachinar blasts.

In Baluchistan, provincial government spokesman Anwar ul Haq Kakar said the Quetta car bomb went off near the office of the inspector general (IG) of police.

“It’s possible the IG office was the target, or the assailants were trying to enter the cantonment which is close by,” he said, referring to an army housing area.

An official from Baluchistan’s bomb disposal unit said the car had contained up to 95 kg of explosives.

Television footage showed emergency workers rushing to the debris-strewn scene as security officials cordoned it off.

Quetta is about 100 km (60 miles) east of the border with Afghanistan.

Resource-rich Baluchistan province has been plagued by violence for years. Separatist rebels are battling government forces while Taliban and other militant Islamist groups also operate there.

Baluchistan is also a main center of Chinese-backed “Belt and Road” infrastructure and energy projects involving some $57 billion worth of investment across Pakistan.

Militants loyal to the Islamic State group abducted and killed two Chinese nationals in Quetta last month.

That attack prompted Pakistan to boost security for Chinese nationals and other foreigners in the province, which is already one of the most militarized regions in the country.

Late on Friday, in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and financial capital, four police were shot dead as they were observing the iftar meal to break the daily Ramadan fast, local TV and a security official said. </s> Gunmen in Pakistan have killed four members of the minority Christian community in the country's southwest, in an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorists.

Police said the victims were traveling in a rickshaw Monday when armed men on a motorcycle stopped them and opened fire. The attack took place in a Christian-majority neighborhood in the city of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

Police said the family members, which included three men and a woman, appear to have been targeted because of their faith.

The attack comes a day after Pakistan's Christian community celebrated Easter.

IS took responsibility for the attack through its Amaq News agency.

The terrorist group said its regional affiliate, Khorasan Province, carried out the attack but provided no evidence, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist threats.

Baluchistan province has seen an increase in militant attacks in recent months.

Baluch separatist militants, the outlawed Pakistani Taliban and extremists linked to the Afghan Taliban allegedly operate out of the Pakistani province.

Pakistan authorities said IS loyalists are using bases in "ungoverned" areas of neighboring Afghanistan for attacks against Pakistan.

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a packed church in Quetta last December in which nine worshippers were killed, and dozens more were wounded. </s> IS claims suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 20

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at an open-air market in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta a day earlier that killed twenty people.

The Sunni militant group, which has repeatedly targeted Pakistan's minority Shiites, said in a statement posted on an IS-affiliated website Saturday that it targeted Shiites and elements of the Pakistani army.

Police said a suicide bomber hit the market Friday, killing eight Shiites, a paramilitary soldier and others. Four paramilitary troops guarding the market were among the 40 wounded.

Protests by dozens of angry Shiite youth from the Hazara community continued Saturday in Quetta for a second day, demanding greater security protection. The community has been targeted many times in recent years by Sunni militant groups. </s> QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide bomber targeted an open-air market in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others, police and hospital officials said.

Shortly after the bombing, struck near a Shiite residential area, dozens of angry Shiite youths rallied in Quetta, demanding more security from the authorities and the arrest of those behind the attacks.

They also denounced the violence by Sunni extremists who have killed hundreds in similar attacks over the past years in Baluchistan province, where Quetta is the capital.

“It seems people from the (Shiite) Hazara community were the target,” said senior police chief Abdur Razzaq Cheema.

Mir Ziaullah Langau, the provincial home minister, said the suicide bomber had walked up to the marketplace and killed both Shiites and Sunnis.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place in the Hazarganji neighborhood, but Sunni militant groups have claimed similar bombings in the past against Shiites, whom they view as apostates deserving of death.

Cheema, the police chief, said at least eight Shiites were among the dead, as well as a paramilitary soldier and seven other people. Four paramilitary troops, who were guarding the open-air fruit and vegetable market, were among the wounded.

Qadir Nayil, a leader of the Hazara community, asked the government to provide better protection for the Shiites.

“Once again our people were the target and once again we will have to bury our dear ones,” he said. “We demand more security from the government and all those involved in today’s act of terrorism should be found and punished.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Arif Alvi issued statements condemning the attack and adding that it would not weaken “the resolve of the nation in the fight against terrorism.”

Jam Kamal Khan, the chief minister of Baluchistan province, also condemned the attack, saying “the enemy of humanity” is to blame.

Hours after the attack in Quetta, a roadside bomb exploded outside a shop in the southwestern border town of Chama, killing one person and wounding 10 others, police and hospitals officials said.

Several militant groups operate in Baluchistan, which is also the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists demanding more autonomy and a greater share in the region’s natural resources such as gas and oil.
At least four are killed in an attack in Quetta, Pakistan. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility.