‘Ansarul Muhajideen’ claims double suicide attack in Kurram

A group calling itself “Ansarul Mujahideen” has claimed credit for yesterday’s double suicide attack in Parachinar in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal agency of Kurram, and said the attack was carried out to avenge Shia involvement in the Syrian civil war. According to Reuters, 52 people were killed in the attack. Dawn puts the number killed at 57 and an additional 167 people wounded:

On Friday evening, two suicide bombers on motorcycles struck in the northwestern town of Parachinar just as people flocked to a busy marketplace to buy food for their evening meals after a day of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

Riaz Mahsud, the top administrator of the predominantly Shi’ite Kurram area, said the death toll, originally reported at 39, jumped to 52 after several people died from their wounds during the night. He said all the victims were Shi’ites.

A previously unknown group called Ansarul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack.

“We plan more similar attacks against the Shi’ite community in Pakistan to seek revenge for the brutalities of Shi’ites against Sunni Muslims in Syria and Iraq,” Abu Baseer, who identified himself as a spokesman for the group, told Reuters by telephone.

It is highly likely that Ansarul Mujahideen is either a front for the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or a blending of several groups like others that have popped up in Pakistan in the past, such as the Fedayeen-e-Islam.

Meanwhile, in Quetta, “residents” who appear to be part of a neighborhood watch gunned down a suicide bomber before he could target a Shia mosque.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed suicide attacks in Quetta in the past; in February the group took credit for the murder of more than 90 Pakistanis, mostly Shia, after detonating nearly one ton of “high-grade” explosives in the provincial capital. The Taliban and al Qaeda-linked group has also released videos of executions of captured Shia prisoners.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

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4 Comments

  • Birbal Dhar says:

    These new names will occur over time, because splinter groups do happen. I suspect in this case, this new group was formed, because a certain leader believes he can run his squad of terrorists better than someone at the extreme top. However they will still be friends and share weapons etc … That’s what I believe how these islamic terrorists operate in Waziristan.

  • blert says:

    The ‘Syrian’ civil war has metastasized…
    It figures to be a multi-faction scrum — an islamic retread of the Thirty-Years War.

  • Bill Roggio says:

    Birbal Dhar, Sometimes that may be the case, and in others, it is for plausible deniability or to confuse intel agencies.

  • mike merlo says:

    @B Roggio, B Dhar
    both valid views but what of the ‘Eye Of The Needle’ manifestation that hails from ‘neither’ yet moves ‘among’ sowing murder & mayhem
    Personally I’m a big fan of engaging in activities that confuses myself.

Iraq

Islamic state

Syria

Aqap

Al shabaab

Boko Haram

Isis