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IS Claims Pakistani Sufi Shrine Blast


A man carries a boy injured after a bomb blast at a hospital in the Hub district, some 40 kilometers from Karachi on November 12.
A man carries a boy injured after a bomb blast at a hospital in the Hub district, some 40 kilometers from Karachi on November 12.

Officials say a bomb blast at a Sufi shrine in southwestern Pakistan has killed at least 50 and wounded more than 100.

The Islamic State (IS) extremist group has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.

Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti, the home minister in Pakistan's Balochistan region where the explosion occurred, told reporters the November 12 blast took place at the Shah Noorani shrine about 100 kilometers north of the port city of Karachi.

Many of those wounded were taken to Karachi hospitals.

The IS group said in a statement on its Amaq news agency that it's followers had carried out the attack.

Hundreds of people were inside the shrine at the time for a ritual dancem cakked dhamaal, that takes place every day at sunset. He said many women and children were believed to have been killed in the incident.

The Balochistan region has seen some of the worst militant attacks this year in Pakistan.

Sufism is a branch of Islam that espouses a mystical, inner belief and incorporates music in its worship. It has been rejected as heretical by IS fighters and other extremists who hold a fundamentalist view of Islam.

Earlier this year, prominent singer Amjad Sabri was killed in Karachi, shot by gunmen believed to have targeted him for his Sufi beliefs.

With reporting by Reuters, and AP

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