which appeared to have ended several years ago, may have resumed. At least five Iranians were killed and three others injured Sunday night when masked gunmen fired into a group of Iranians waiting at a bus stop. Geo News, a television station, said the shooting occurred in Mand, a small town at the southwestern tip of Pakistani Baluchestan, not far from the Iranian border. The dead Iranians were described as traders on their way to Karachi. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Recently, however, the militant Sunni Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was reported to have threatened to kill the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, accusing him of supporting Pakistani Shiis against the Sunni majority. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is an armed terrorist group with a very strong anti-Shia bent. It has been accused of many shootings of Pakistani Shiis. From 1990 to 2003, some 16 Iranian in Pakistan were gunned down, with Lashkar-i- Jhangvi suspected in many of the killings. Another radical Sunni group, Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), was also implicated in a number of the killings. But the killings halted in 2003. While it is not known if the Sunday murders are a resumption of such killings, the execution-style of the shootings, with no theft taking place, looked like Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s or Sipah-i-Sahaba’s killing style. Pakistan has had a great deal of difficulty prosecuting the terrorists as they have also targeted judges and prosecutors pursuing them. For example, in 1998, the Pakistani prosecutor of men accused of killing two Iranian construction firm employees in a drive-by shooting was himself murdered in a drive-by shooting. The murders began as attacks on Iranian officials who were accused of aiding Pakistani Shias against Sunnis. But the attacks soon branched out to indiscriminately strike at Iranians. Here is the history of the attack:
• In December 1990, Sadiq Ganji became the first to die. He was the Iranian cultural attaché in Lahore and was gunned down as he was arriving at a hotel for his farewell party.
• In January 1997, a mob burned down the Iranian cultural center in Lahore, but no one was killed.
• In February 1997, a similar mob attacked the Iranian cultural center in Multan, killing the Iranian cultural attaché and six Pakistani employees.
• In September 1997, five Pasdar officers died when motorcyclists pulled up beside their van and sprayed them with gunfire as they were being driven through Rawalpindi to a training course. One Pasdar in the van survived.
• Ten days later, two brothers who were long term residents of Karachi and owned bakeries a few blocks apart were shot and killed at their bakeries a few minutes apart.
• In November 1997, an Iranian teenager was beaten and killed at his school. It is not clear if that was part of the general sectarian violence or involved some personal feud.
• On February 21, 1998, twoconstruction firm employees were murdered in Karachi. That day was the first anniversary of the Multan cultural center attack.
• On February 25, 1998, according to the Urdu daily Jhang, the police found the body of an Iranian national, Abbas Yar- Ahmadi, who had arrived in Pakistan two months earlier and was planning to emigrate to Sweden. No other information was available on him or on the details of his death—or whether he appeared to be a victim of the anti- Shii violence.
• On January 20, 2001, Mohammad Haji Sultani, a Shiite cleric who taught at a seminary and had lived in Pakistan 33 years, was shot dead in Karachi on his 60th birthday. Two Sunnis from the Lashkar group were later arrested and were said to have confessed.
• On February 27, 2003, two more bakers, Ghulam Hussain and Bakr Raza, who had long lived in Pakistan were gunned down in front of their Karachi bakery by men on a motorcycle Thus, the first seven to die were all officers of the Islamic Republic, but the last nine were all private citizens with no links to the Iranian government.
