Pakistan’s Taliban has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a hospital in Quetta which left dozens dead on Monday.
This attack occurred three years to the day that another suicide bombing in Quetta occurred; a police officer was murdered and a suicide bomber attended his funeral the same day, killing more than two dozen people. News outlets have stated that Quetta has recently been plagued with fatal attacks towards lawyers.
At least 70 people were killed in the attack on Monday; 120 others were injured. Several lawyers who were present in the hospital to pay their respects to a colleague who was murdered that day were caught in the bombing.
Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the region’s bar association, was murdered by two attackers on a motorcycle while traveling to work on Monday. Lawyers were present at the hospital where his autopsy was being conducted to travel with his body to the cemetery when the bombing occurred.
The spokesman for a faction of Pakistan’s Taliban released a statement in which he said the group took responsibility for the attack, adding their promise to carry out similar attacks.
Among the dead are two journalists—cameramen for Pakistani news networks—Baz Muhammad Kakar, Kasi’s predecessor as Baluchistan Bar Association president, and 17 other lawyers.
The motives of both attacks are under investigation.
