
By Aamir Iqbal and Pamela Constable Asia & PacificAugust 8
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A gruesome suicide bombing at midday Monday left at least 70 people dead outside a hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, most of them lawyers who had rushed there to protest and mourn the earlier killing of a local bar-association leader.
The Khorasan branch of the Islamic State, a regional affiliate of the Mideast-based Sunni Islamist militant group, asserted responsibility for the blast in telephone calls to journalists in Pakistan. But a separate Pakistani militant splinter group, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, issued an online statement claiming it had carried out the bombing.
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