Easter Suicide Bomb Targeting Christians that Killed at least 70 People

At least 72 people were killed and more than 320 others injured when a suicide bomber, who was targeting Christians, blew himself up at a busy park in Lahore on Sunday in Pakistan.

Reuters:

Pakistani authorities on Monday hunted members of a Taliban faction which once declared loyalty to Islamic State after the group claimed responsibility for an Easter suicide bomb targeting Christians that killed at least 70 people.

The brutality of Sunday’s attack by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, the group’s fifth bombing since December, reflects the movement’s attempts to raise its profile among Pakistan’s increasingly fractured Islamist militants.

At least 29 children enjoying an Easter weekend outing were among those killed when the suicide bomber struck in a busy park in the eastern city of Lahore, the power base of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Pakistan is a majority-Muslim state but has a Christian population of more than two million.

It was Pakistan’s deadliest attack since the December 2014 massacre of 134 school children at a military-run academy in the city of Peshawar that prompted a big government crackdown on Islamist militancy.