8 people killed in attack on sufi gathering

Gunmen threw grenades at a Sufi Islamic religious gathering on Sunday in the port city of Karachi and then opened fire on the people assembled to offer prayers, killing eight, officials said.Eight others were wounded in the attack, said Aftab Chanur, an official at a hospital where the injured were taken.

The four gunmen, who were on motorcycles, first lobbed grenades at a building where a Sufi cleric was receiving his followers, then raked it with automatic fire, said Javed Odho, a police official.He said women and children were among the dead and wounded.

Pakistan is 95 percent Muslim, and the majority practice Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam.

But Sufi shrines and followers have come under attack from Sunni Muslim militants who do not consider them to be true Muslims.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack. But suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban or their affiliated sectarian groups, which follow a strict interpretation of Islam that considers many other Muslims, like Sufis or minority Shiites, to be heretics.. more brief

Comments

Imam Shamshad Visits Two Inland Empire Mayors

Imam Shamshad’s mission is to inform the citizens of Southern California in general — and its religious and civic leaders in particular — about the true teachings of Islam and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s Baitul Hameed Mosque on Ramona Ave. in Chino is celebrating its 25th anniversary in July, and its Imam, Shamshad A. Nasir, is on a mission — a public relations mission that’s been on-going since the mosque was built and which he has continued since being stationed at the Chino Mosque as the worldwide Ahmadiyya Community’s southwest regional missionary in the U.S More Brief

Nigerian military denies targeting Muslims in its operations

The Nigerian military on Tuesday rejected the allegation that soldiers were carrying out attacks aimed at killing Muslims. The military described a statement issued by the Jama'atul Nasril Islam, JNI, alleging extra-judicial killing of Muslims as 'inflammatory.'The JNI had issued a statement on Monday accusing the military of carrying out attacks targeted at unharmed Muslims. The JNI is a coalition of Islamic organisations in Nigeria and is headed by the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar.In its response, the Director of Defence Information, Chris Olukolade, said in a statement that JNI's statement was false and was meant to cause disaffection within the military. Mr. Olukolade said although the military would not join issues with the reputable religious group, it would, however, set the records straight."The Nigerian military remains non-partisan, non-sectarian and will continue to be the symbol of patriotism and a unifying factor in the face of threats to national s...

Leaders of Syrain church group visits U.S to ask government to stop supporting rebels

Armenian Orthodox Christians gather at their church of St Sarkis in Old Damascu s || BCCN1 The stories told by five top Syrian Christian leaders about the horrors their churches are experiencing at the hands of Islamist extremists are biblical in their brutality. Bishop Elias Toumeh, representative of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, tells of the funeral he led ten days ago for the headless body of one of his parishioners in Marmarita. Rev. Adeeb Awad, vice moderator of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, explains how the rebels blew up his church and then pointed the finger at the regime. Bishop Armash Nalbandian, primate of the Armenian Church of Damascus, says he received word on facebook from a fellow bishop in Aleppo that two congregants were traveling when opposition fighters stopped their bus, made them present their Armenian IDs, and then took them away. The fighters, Nalbandian recounts, returned to the fellow passengers...

Religious Broadcast

Search This Blog