Pakistani raids kill 39 suspects after IS attack

Most of the operations were carried out by the paramilitary Rangers.

The raids targeted militant hideouts.

Sixteen people were also killed in a suicide bombing at a protest rally in the Lahore on Monday. Officials said a total of 47 suspects were arrested.

Bomb attacks targeting former premier Benazir Bhutto kill 139 people in Karachi as she returns to Pakistan for the first time in eight years.

In November, an explosion claimed by Islamic State ripped through a Muslim shrine in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores.

Sufism is a religious minority in Pakistan. The militants view the shrine as a form of idolatry.

January 1: A suicide vehicle bomb kills 101 people at a village volleyball game in the northwestern district of Bannu. “I saw bodies everywhere”.

A number of women and children reportedly were among the dead.

This is the shrine where the Sufi Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar was buried.

Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, issued a statement appealing to the nation to remain calm. “No more restraint for anyone”, the COAS said. “We also offer our support to the Government of Pakistan as it works to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice”, the spokesman said.

Bombings claimed by ISIL killed more than 120 people in Pakistan and Iraq on Thursday, and injured more than 200 others. The attacker blew himself up after throwing a grenade, which failed to explode, he said.

Terror outfit ISIS claimed responsibility for the ghastly attack through its Dafaq new agency. According to Al Jazeera, the second major border crossing at Chaman, which leads to Kandahar in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, was closed on Friday after the Torkham border was sealed off late on Thursday.

The Pakistani Foreign Office summoned Afghan Deputy Head of Mission in Islamabad, Syed Abdul Nasir Yousafi, and presented a dossier outlining evidence of terrorist sanctuaries, financiers and handlers from Afghanistan who were involved in the attack, urging the Afghan government to take action against the culprits.

The army chief’s tough declaration echoed a statement made Wednesday by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after a meeting with senior civilian and military officials.

Pakistani students light candles to condemn the recent attack on a shrine in interior Sind province, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017 in Karachi, Pakistan.

The Edhi Welfare Trust, which runs Pakistan’s largest ambulance service, said 43 of the dead were men, nine women and 20 children.