Gunmen kill 43 in attack on Shiite minority in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen killed 43 people on Wednesday aboard a bus in southern Pakistan bound for a Shiite community center, in the latest attack targeting the religious minority, police said.

More than a dozen others were wounded in the attack in the port city of Karachi, said provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali. He said 16 women were among the dead.

The bus was en route to a community center for Ismaili Shiite Muslims when six gunmen boarded it and sprayed the passengers with bullets, he said. The attackers then fled the scene on three motorcycles.

"These are the people who are extremists, who are terrorists," he said of the assailants. "These are the same people who have been doing terrorism before."

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Taliban and other Sunni Muslim extremist groups, which view Shiites as apostates, have long had a presence in Karachi and have targeted Shiites in the past. Ismaili Shiites are a tiny minority in mostly Sunni Pakistan.

"They were innocent people," Sindh province Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said. "We feel very sorry for this ghastly act."