Taliban group threatens to attack India following border blast

Thursday, 6 November 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters: A new Pakistani Taliban group behind this week’s devastating suicide bombing on the Wagah border said on Wednesday the attack was as much aimed at India as Pakistan, suggesting that Indian targets might be next. At least 57 Pakistanis were killed during a popular flag-lowering ceremony on Sunday when a bomber tried to get as close as possible to the border in a possible attempt to cause casualties on the Indian side as well.

Relatives gather beside the bodies of victims who were killed in yesterday's suicide bomb attack on the Wagah border, before funeral prayers in Lahore, Pakistan - Reuters Ehsanullah Ehsan, a prominent militant and spokesman for the group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat Ahrar (TTP-JA), said he had warned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that attacks in India were in the pipeline. “I have already conveyed it to Modi ... that if our suicide bombers can carry out attacks on this side of the border, they can easily do it on other side of the border in India,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. “I told him that his hands are red with the blood of Kashmiri mujahideen (fighters) and innocent people of Gujarat for which he would have to pay the price.” He earlier tweeted in English: “You (Modi) are the killer of hundreds of Muslims. We wl (will) take the revenge of innocent people of Kashmir and Gugrat” (sic). An Indian intelligence official said the account appeared genuine. Kashmir is a disputed Himalayan territory over which India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars. Gujarat - misspelt in the tweet - is a state where more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in inter-religious rioting in 2002, when Modi was its chief minister.