Gunmen attacked a bus carrying mainly Shiite Muslim workers Tuesday in south-western Pakistan, killing 13 people and injuring seven, police said.
The ambush took place on the outskirts of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan, when four attackers in a car stopped the bus transporting the workers to a vegetable market, DPA reported.
"They told the people to come out and then opened fire on them," said an official at the city's main police control unit who would only identify himself by his first name, Khalil.
"Among the dead are 12 people from the Hazara community and one is a Sunni Muslim," he said.
The Hazars are a Shiite group that has been targeted by Sunni extremist groups in Balochistan.
Last month, gunmen killed 26 Shiite Muslim pilgrims heading to Iran, most of them Hazars, in a similar attack in the same province.
Violence between extremist elements of the minority Shiite and majority Sunni communities in Pakistan has claimed thousands of lives over the past several decades.
Shiite Muslims have recently become the primary targets of attacks across the country because of the increasing power of extremist Sunni groups, which are affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Sunnis have used suicide bombings and ambushes to attack Shiite civilians and community leaders.
...