Leader of Pakistan’s outlawed anti-Shia group shot dead
The leader of Pakistan’s outlawed anti-Shia group has been shot dead near Ghauri town, on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad, according to the police.
Masood-ur-Rehman Usmani, who was the leader of Pakistan's outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) extremist group, was gunned down on Friday.
CCTV footage aired by Pakistani media showed two gunmen on a motorbike who approached his vehicle and shot him. He was taken to a hospital where the doctors pronounced him dead.
Immediately after the incident, a large police deployment cordoned the street and an official investigation into the incident was launched.
No group or individual has yet claimed responsibility for the incident. Pakistani police said they would track down the perpetrators through the CCTV camera footage.
The SSP was founded in September 1985, a time of rising tensions in the Punjabi city of Jhang.
The outfit, which was backed by the Zia al-Huq regime and received funding from Saudi Arabia, soon turned into an anti-Shia militant group. The group operated all across Pakistan until it was banned and outlawed as a terrorist organization in 2002 by then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Some outlets attempted to link Friday’s incident to neighboring Iran.
On Wednesday, deadly bomb attacks hit Iran’s southeastern city of Kerman.
However, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry blamed the explosions on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
According to a ministry statement, two terrorists conducted the bomb attacks, one with a Tajik nationality. The identity of the second perpetrator is yet unclear.
The terrorist explosions were carried out near the burial site of Iran’s late anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani during a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of his martyrdom.
The blasts left 89 people dead and 286 more wounded some of them in critical condition.
In a statement posted on their affiliate Telegram channels, the Daesh takfiri terrorist outfit claimed responsibility for the cowardly attacks, saying two of its members had detonated their explosive devices during General Soleimani’s memorial.
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