SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Six women and a man, working for a health and education charity, have been shot dead in a drive-by shooting after they left a community centre in northwest Pakistan, police say. The victims of Tuesday's attack were all Pakistanis attached to the community centre in a Swabi village. The incident happened in the Swabi area, close to a junction for the highway which connects the northwestern city of Peshawar to the capital Islamabad and the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Organiser of Shia religious activities and license holder for the main mourning processions in Chiniot, Malik Mukhtar Hussain, was allegedly target killed by six armed men during a mourning procession which was underway on December 31.Six gunmen on three motorbikes had barged into the vicinity of Imambargah Qasr-e-Abu Talib located in Chowk Shori Pipli area in Muhallah Rangraizan and opened fire at Hussain.Two teenage devotees were also injured in the attack that took place during the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Seven charity workers, six of them women, have been shot dead in north-west Pakistan, police say.The women, some of them teachers, were attacked near a children's community centre. A male colleague died with them. All were Pakistani citizens.Their vehicle came under gunfire near the centre run by Pakistani charity Ujala, or Light.Militants targeting a vaccination programme are suspected. No group has said it carried out the attack.The incident happened in the Swabi district close…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Another Shia Muslim has been killed in an attack by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi in the latest wave of assaults on Shias in the country.On Monday, the gunmen shot dead 40-year-old Jawad Hasan Naqvi at the city’s Qureshi Market in Orangi neighborhood. Shia leaders in Karachi called on the government to take immediate action against the forces involved in the Shia killings in the country. On Sunday, a terrorist attack on…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The outgoing year has been worst for journalists in the country, as South Asia has mourned the murder of 25 media persons so far in 2012. Pakistan again remains in the lead with the killing of 13 journalists.According to a report of the South Asia Media Commission (SAMC), 13 journalists lost their lives in Pakistan followed by five in India, three in Bangladesh and two each in Nepal and Afghanistan in 2012.Last year, 17…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- More than 20 people have been injured in the incident in the Mastung district of Baluchistan province. Pakistan has experienced worsening sectarian violence in recent years. Last month 23 Shia Muslims were killed by a bomb in the city of Rawalpindi. No group has yet said it carried out Sunday's bombing. Initial reports said it had been detonated by remote control but a government official said it had been a suicide attack. Officials said…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Authorities are investigating cough syrup believed to have killed 33 people in eastern Pakistan in the past three days, a government official said Saturday, the second time in recent months that suspect medicine is thought to have caused multiple deaths. The deaths from the cough syrup occurred in Gujranwala and villages surrounding the city, said Abdul Jabbar Shaheen, the top administrative official in Gujranwala. Another 54 people are being treated at hospitals in the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- An explosion has ripped through a passenger bus while it was at a terminal in the southern city of Karachi, killing four people and wounding 40 others, police and hospital officials said. It is unclear if Saturday’s blast was caused by a bomb or a gas cylinder exploding. The blast set the vehicle on fire and reduced it to little more than a charred skeleton. Some of the injured were in critical condition, said…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - The 24-year-old son of the late Benazir Bhutto, groomed to take the reins of power in Pakistan, came of age politically Thursday, exactly five years after the assassination of his mother. Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari flexed his tender political muscles at a rally with his father, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, near the family home in Sindh province ahead of next year's elections. He delivered a political stump speech acknowledging problems in Pakistan, such as the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Even the world's most wanted terrorist could not escape the bribery dragnet. Osama bin Laden's safe-house in Pakistan's garrison city Abbottabad was built after paying a bribe of Rs 50,000 to a revenue official, a media report said on Wednesday. The bribe was paid to the 'patwari' so that Laden could construct a three-storey building within the compound surrounded by a 14-foot boundary wall and an iron fence.Details of the bribe emerged after Pakistani officials translated a…