Peshawar, July 12: Paramilitary soldiers were patrolling a remote region of northwest Pakistan today after tit-for-tat killings by Sunni and Shiite muslims inflamed religious tensions in the heavily armed tribal belt. Yesterday, gunmen shot dead two sunni tribesmen outside Kelaya, about 300 kilometers southwest of Peshawar.
Fellow tribesmen in the area later stopped a bus carrying Shiite Muslims and killed two passengers. Another three Shiite muslim passengers were wounded.
No one has claimed responsibility for the killings, but there is a history of sectarian violence in some regions of northwest Pakistan.
The killings came just one week after suicide attackers killed more than 50 Shiite Muslim worshippers in a mosque in southwestern Baluchistan province.
No one claimed responsibility for that attack. However, Shiite leaders in Baluchistan blamed foreigners, indicating it may have been afghan Taliban fugitives hiding out in Pakistan.
Yesterday, Pakistan's interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat also implicated Afghan Taliban, saying the attackers had roots in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Bureau Report