Pakistani Taliban Targets Christian Colony In Suicide Bombing

Suicide bombers targeted a Christian colony in Pakistan Friday, killing 13 and wounding dozens, according to the LA Times. 

Four jihadists wearing suicide vests and armed with semiautomatic weapons attacked a residential colony filled with Christian families on the outskirts of the city in Peshawar next to a security base, according to Col. Naeem Ullah, the commandant of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at the base. 

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, an arm of the Pakistani Taliban militant federation, claimed responsibility for the attack.

A security guard was killed after firing at the attackers, but his efforts reportedly helped avoid more deaths. 

In another attack 25 miles east of Peshawar in Mardan, a suicide bomber threw a hand grenade at a police officer that was guarding the main gate of a courthouse and then set off a suicide bomb. 

The explosion killed dozens of lawyers and others around the complex. 

A spokesman for the city rescue service, Bilal Jalal, said 12 bodies were retrieved from the site of the bombing, where 51 people were badly wounded. 

A state of emergency was declared in all the hospitals in Mardan. 

The terrorist group has also taken responsibility for large attacks in Pakistan in recent months, including one suicide mission that killed 64 people and another attack that killed 72. 

Christians make up less than 2 percent of the 200 million people in Pakistan. 

"The fact that Christians are so often the target in terrorists' plots is starting to register and security strategies have improved as a consequence," said Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association. 

"Even then, something has to be done to exterminate both the extremist groups and the pervading hatred for minorities among the general populace, that together make life for Pakistani Christians and other minorities in Pakistan untenable," he warned.