Quetta, Parachinar: At least 43 killed in multiple blasts

Multiple blasts killed at least 43 people in two cities on the last Friday of Ramazan, as officials warned the toll could rise. Authorities said 30 people were killed and over 100 wounded when twin blasts tore through a market in a Parachinar, crowded with shoppers preparing for the Eid-ul-Fitr.
The first of the two blasts detonated during rush hour in the market in Parachinar, capital of Kurram tribal district, local official Nasrullah Khan told AFP. "When people rushed to the site... to rescue the wounded, a second blast took place," he said. A second official confirmed the explosions and toll.
"We fear that the death toll will increase," Khan said, adding that no further details were available yet. The twin blasts in Parachinar followed a bombing earlier in the day outside the office of the police chief in Quetta that killed at least 13 people. Investigators said the attack targeted police. It was claimed by both the local affiliate of the Islamic State group and by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), an offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban, according to the SITE monitoring group.
There was no immediate explanation for the dual claims. Islamic State Khorasan Province, the Middle Eastern group's affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been known to work with the myriad of Pakistani militant groups in previous attacks, including with JuA. Officials at the city's Civil Hospital said at least 13 people were killed and around 20 injured, mostly by shrapnel. Police officials said nine policemen were among the dead. At the hospital in Quetta, worried children stood by the bloodstained cots of wounded relatives, and soldiers visited injured colleagues.
Stunned survivors could give few details about the attack. "I was sitting on a chair. There was an explosion. I got injured and fell down," said one victim, Gulzar Ahmad. Pakistan has waged a long war with militancy, particularly in the tribal northwest, until recently a safe haven for extremists who operated there with impunity, and in Balochistan, where it has been battling Islamist and nationalist insurgencies. Security has dramatically improved in the country since its deadliest-ever terror attack, an assault on a school in Peshawar in which Taliban gunmen left more than 150 people dead, most of them children.