QUETTA: At least four children were killed on Wednesday and over 30 wounded in a suspected suicide bombing that targeted a bus carrying students from a military run school in southwestern Pakistan, officials said.
“A bus carrying children of the APS (Army Public School) was targeted with a bomb, the nature of which is still being determined,” Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a senior local government official in Khuzdar district of Balochistan province, told AFP.
“The initial probe suggests it was a suicide bombing,” he added.
A senior police official confirmed the death toll to AFP on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media, adding that it could rise.
The school caters to the children of army personnel and civilians living in the area.
In 2014, the Army Public School in Peshawar in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province was attacked by gunmen who killed more than 150 people — mostly students.
The horrific attack sparked a massive crackdown against militancy that had thrived for years in the border regions.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi offered his “heartfelt sympathy” to the families of the victims, adding that “beasts who target innocent children deserve no mercy.”
Four children killed in school bus attack in southwestern Pakistan: government officials
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Four children killed in school bus attack in southwestern Pakistan: government officials
- At least four children were killed on Wednesday and over 30 wounded in a suspected suicide bombing that targeted a bus carrying students from a military run school in southwestern Pakistan, officials
Activist Peter Tatchell arrested over ‘globalize the intifada’ placard
- Arrest in London during Saturday protest an ‘attack on free speech,’ his foundation says
- Intifada ‘does not mean violence and is not antisemitic,’ veteran campaigner claims
LONDON: Prominent activist Peter Tatchell was arrested at a pro-Palestine march in central London, The Independent reported.
According to his foundation, the 74-year-old was arrested for holding a placard that said: “Globalize the intifada: Nonviolent resistance. End Israel’s occupation of Gaza & West Bank.”
The Peter Tatchell Foundation said in a statement that the activist labeled his Saturday arrest as an “attack on free speech.”
It added: “The police claimed the word intifada is unlawful. The word intifada is not a crime in law. The police are engaged in overreach by making it an arrestable offense.
“This is part of a dangerous trend to increasingly restrict and criminalize peaceful protests.”
Tatchell described the word “intifada,” an Arab term, as meaning “uprising, rebellion or resistance against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
“It does not mean violence and is not antisemitic. It is against the Israeli regime and its war crimes, not against Jewish people.”
According to his foundation, Tatchell was transported to Sutton police station to be detained following his arrest.
In December last year, London’s Metropolitan Police said that pro-Palestine protesters chanting “globalize the intifada” would face arrest, attributing the new rules to a “changing context” in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack in Australia.
“Officers policing the Palestine Coalition protest have arrested a 74-year-old man on suspicion of a public order offense. He was seen carrying a sign including the words ‘globalize the intifada’,” the Metropolitan Police said on X.
According to a witness, Tatchell had been marching near police officers with the placard for about a mile when the group came across a counterprotest.
He was then stopped and “manhandled by 10 officers,” said Jacky Summerfield, who accompanied Tatchell at the protest.
“I was shoved back behind a cordon of officers and unable to speak to him after that,” she said.
“I couldn’t get any closer to hear anything more than that; it was for Section 5 (of the Public Order Act).
“There had been no issue until that. He was walking near the police officers. Nobody had said or done anything.”
