Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pakistan was rocked on Monday, Dec. 28, by a vicious suicide bombing that killed at least 32 people and injured almost twice as many amid a major annual mourning procession of the country's minority Shi'ites in the heart of Karachi, the largest city and commercial center in the nation. As the death toll mounts, the country's political leaders have united in their condemnation of the attack. It was the third such assault in Karachi in as many days, crushing the city's hopes of evading the current wave of bombings, deepening fears of further sectarian attacks...
...failure to stanch the anti-Shi'ite bloodshed has drained ordinary people's faith in the government. In its place, there is now raw anger. After ambulances rushed the dead and wounded to hospitals, some of the marchers defiantly continued. Less patient ones lashed out at government officials and journalists in the area, local media reported. Across Karachi, large buildings and more than 15 cars were torched. The fear is now that the city may see more such attacks and tit-for-tat reprisals. "I want to appeal to the people, to my brothers, my elders, to stay calm," said...
Since the 1980s, Pakistan's Shi'ite community has been subjected to brutal attacks from extremist Wahabi-inspired militant groups that regard them as heretics or apostates. With the emergence of the Pakistani Taliban, that threat has intensified. In recent years, the town of Parachinar in the wild tribal areas along the Afghan border, Baluchistan province's capital of Quetta, Dera Ismail Khan in the northwest, and parts of Punjab have been among the areas scarred by anti-Shi'ite attacks. The latest bombing will call attention to the Taliban's long-standing but murky presence in Karachi. Until this...
...taken down one policeman and lifted his helmet in the air like a trophy. Others at the refreshment stall listened as they ate lentil soup and drank tea with dates. No more than 100 yards away, police clashed once again with protesters, while the black-shirted, chador-wearing Shi'ite faithful gathered around the stall cried, "Death to the dictator...
Meanwhile, the Sana'a government is in the middle of another ferocious war, against its Houthi minority, Yemeni followers of the Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam. That introduces the shadow - both real and imagined - of the primary Shi'a power in the region, Iran, which is happy to take credit even if its actual influence may still be negligible. When Iran is mentioned, however, both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the predominant Sunni power in the region, start quaking. And al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, no friend to any of the parties, is happy to sow destabilization...