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Deadly attack on Methodist church in Pakistan | |
(35 minutes later) | |
A suicide bomb and gun attack on a Methodist church in Pakistan has killed at least five people, reports say. | |
The attack happened in the city of Quetta, some 65km (40 miles) from the border with Afghanistan. | The attack happened in the city of Quetta, some 65km (40 miles) from the border with Afghanistan. |
More than a dozen people were also wounded after gunmen wearing explosive vests tried to enter the building. | |
The two attackers were intercepted at the entrance, the region's home minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, said on Twitter. | |
Had the men not been stopped there could have been hundreds of casualties, he added. | |
One of the men detonated his bomb vest and the other was stopped in a gunfight with police. | |
Security forces are conducting a search operation and have surrounded the site of the attack, in the city's high-security zone, local Urdu-language TV channels report. | Security forces are conducting a search operation and have surrounded the site of the attack, in the city's high-security zone, local Urdu-language TV channels report. |
A spokesman for the foreign affairs ministry, Dr Mohammed Faisal, condemned the attack. | A spokesman for the foreign affairs ministry, Dr Mohammed Faisal, condemned the attack. |
Attacks in the mainly Sunni Muslim region are not uncommon, often targeting the Hazara Shia Muslim community in suicide bombings. | |
But Pakistan's Christian minority has also frequently been the subject of militant attacks, and guards had been placed near the church in Quetta as a result. | |
The Balochistan province is home to unrest from several groups with religious or separatist groups, some of which cross the border from nearby Afghanistan. |