“We briefed. security officials”, the medic said. She referred the questioner to the Defence Department about the matter of military aid, but said, “What I will say is that Pakistan has said that they will go after all terrorists regardless of affiliation”.
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The spokesperson was asked about the cutoff of United States military aid to Pakistan, a victim of terrorist attacks such as the one in Quetta, and whether the U.S. really believed that Pakistan was protecting some terrorist groups.
“It’s very tragic. Our seniors who were our intellectuals have been killed and may God reward them in heaven”, lawyer Ghulam Muhammad told AFP in Quetta.
The bombing in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan province, was initially claimed by Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban that is fighting to overthrow the government and impose strict Islamic law.
The Supreme Court Bar Association and the Pakistan Bar Council said its members were holding a week of mourning and would boycott the courts in protest at the deaths, the BBC reported. “The whole city is gloomy over the loss of nearly the entire leadership of the legal community”, said Abdul Hameed, whose younger sibling Abdul Rasheed Khokhar was buried Tuesday.
Supreme Court Bar President Ali Zafar called for the government to do more to protect lawyers. The group has carried out several attacks in the past, including the suicide bombing of an amusement park in Lahore last March.
At a Quetta market, Mohammad Saleem, a resident of the city, said everyone was still in a state of shock.
Some Pakistani analysts were sceptical. The claim by the Pakistani Taliban splinter group is likely more credible, though if the ISIS claim is legit, it would be the first time they’ve struck in the region.
He noted that Jamaat had sworn loyalty to Islamic State’s Middle East leadership in 2014, but later switched back to the Taliban.
Pakistani lawyers in Islamabad offer prayers for their colleagues a day after a suicide bombing on Monday.
“But is ISIS present there to a degree that they can carry out this kind of well-planned, pre-meditated attack?”
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Zahoor Afridi, the police officer leading the investigation, added: “Their (Islamic State) presence in Baluchistan is limited mostly to sympathisers, not to executioners”.
