Shiites

Attacks in Iraq kill over 40, sectarian tensions high

Baghdad: A series of bomb and gun attacks across Iraq killed more than 40 people on Tuesday, a day after over 70 died in violence targeting majority Shi'ites that has stoked fears of all-out sectarian war with minority Sunnis.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in the past week as sectarian tensions, fuelled by the civil war in neighbouring Syria, threaten to plunge Iraq back into communal bloodletting.

Ten years after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds have yet to find a stable power-sharing deal and violence is again on the upswing.

In the biggest single incident on Tuesday, a car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad killing 11 people and wounding 21, police and medics said....more    

Pakistan faces growing anger over sectarian bombings

Pakistani Shiites called on the military on Sunday to take control of the city of Quetta after a bombing by Sunni militants killed 85 people, and threatened to stage a long march to the capital if their demands were not met. ...  

Attacks targeting Shiites kill 72 in Iraq

Baghdad: A wave of bombings targeting Shiites in Iraq killed 72 people on Thursday, deepening sectarian tensions that exploded just after the last American troops left the country in mid-December. The coordinated attacks targeting Shiites bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility. The bombings began early in the morning when explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad, killing at least...  

Carnage in Kabul sparks fear of sectarian strife

Kabul: In Afghanistan's first major sectarian assault since the fall of the Taliban regime a decade ago, a suicide bomber slaughtered 56 Shiite worshippers and wounded more than 160 others on Tuesday outside a Shiite shrine in the capital. The body of a woman, clutching a dead child in each arm, was sprawled along a dirt road littered with shoes, bloodstained clothing, hats and body parts after the blast, which...