Suicide blasts at shrine kill 42

As many as 42 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in two separate suicide blasts at Darbar Sakhi Sarwar, about 35 kms off Dera Ghazi Khan city on Sunday. The bombers struck outside the shrine of the 13th century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar, in Dera Ghazi Khan district.
Hundreds of devotees had gathered at the shrine for a ceremony when the attacks took place. The dead include four children and eight women. Reportedly, the first blast occurred at the main gate of shrine while another happened within three minutes of the first one in the compound of the shrine when the Urs celebrations were in progress. According to police, two would-be suicide bombers had also been arrested, one of them has been identified as Fida Hussain with injuries.
Divisional Incharge Punjab Emergency Service rescue-1122 Dr Natiq Hayat said that all the dead bodies and injured were shifted to DHQ hospital by the ambulances of emergency service from Muzaffargarh, Layyah and Rajanpur. The attacks outside the shrine killed 41 people, a police officer told AFP from the scene of the blasts.
"We have recovered 41 bodies so far," said the officer, Zahid Hussain Shah, adding that more than 70 were wounded. "Both were suicide attackers, they came on foot and blew themselves up when police on duty stopped them."
Many of those wounded in the attack were in a serious condition, he said, and the injured have been taken to the Dera Ghazi Khan hospital for treatment.
Regional police chief Ahmed Mubarak also confirmed two suicide bombers tried to enter the shrine but failed and blew themselves up. A police official, requesting anonymity, said the shrine had received threats from unidentified militants. Meanwhile, Taliban claimed responsibility for suicide attacks at a Sufi shrine here, a militant spokesman said.
"Our men carried out these attacks and we will carry out more in retaliation for government operations against our people in the north-west," Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from undisclosed location. More than 4,150 people have been killed in suicide attacks and bomb explosions, blamed on home-grown Taliban and other Islamist extremist networks, since government troops stormed a radical mosque in Islamabad in July 2007.