ICC Note:

Terrorists connected to the Pakistani Taliban have killed one Christians in an attack on a Christian neighborhood in Peshawar, Pakistan. Another 12 people were killed in a separate attack on a courthouse in a nearby city. Anti-Christian violence is not uncommon in Pakistan’s northwest area. In 2013, suicide bombers from the Pakistani Taliban attacked All Saints Church following a Sunday service, killing over 100 Christians. Since then, Christians and their places of worship across Pakistan have become a popular soft target for terrorists. 

9/2/2016 Pakistan (Fox News) – Northwestern Pakistan was struck by two separate militant attacks hours apart on Friday, when gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed a Christian colony near the town of Peshawar, killing one civilian, and a suicide bomb attack on a district court in the town of Mardan killed 12 people and wounded 54 others.

Militants stormed the Christian neighborhood early on Friday morning, triggering a shoot-out in which four attackers were killed and one Christian died, police and the military said. Three security officials and two civilian guards were wounded in the attack.

Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said in a statement that the attack was quickly repulsed and that security forces were searching for any accomplices.

Local police official Shaukat Khan said four suicide bombers entered the Christian colony. One of them went into a church, but no one was there at the time. He said the attackers killed one Christian in the neighborhood. It was not immediately clear if any of the suicide bombers had detonated their explosives.

The quick response from the local civilian guards and security forces prevented more deaths, Khan said.

Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway Taliban faction, claimed responsibility for the attack.

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