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Gunmen attacked a bus carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims in the Pakistani city of Karachi, killing at least 43 and injuring other 20, police say.

According to Karachi police, six gunmen on motorcycles, appearing to be from a banned extremist group, stopped the bus and fired indiscriminately.

The bus carrying about 60 was going to an Ismaili Shia place of worship.

Shia minority are the target of frequent sectarian attacks from Sunni militant groups.

Photo EPA

Photo EPA

No group has yet said it carried out the attack.

Provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali said the attack appeared to be the work of the same group involved in recent drive-by shootings of senior police officials in Karachi.

Ghulam Haider Jamali said the bus was on its way to an Ismaili Shia Muslim place of worship when gunmen boarded it in the Safoora Goth area of Karachi and fired at those on board.

The attackers are said to have escaped easily.

The Taliban and other Sunni Muslim extremist groups have targeted Shia Muslims in Pakistan in the past.

In the last few months, several mosques belonging to religious minorities have been bombed.

Pakistan is about 20% Shia and 70% Sunni. Ismaili Shias, in common with other Shia Muslims revere Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed.

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Al-Shabab militants have confirmed that they have attacked a bus in northern Kenya, killing 28 people.

The bus was travelling to Nairobi when it was stopped in Mandera county, not far from the Somali border.

The Somali gunmen separated out non-Muslims by asking passengers to read from the Koran, officials and witnesses said. Those who failed were then shot in the head.

Al-Shabab has carried out a series of attacks in Kenya since 2011.

A statement on a website linked to the Islamist group carried a statement saying the attack was carried out in retaliation for security raids on mosques in the coastal city of Mombasa earlier this week.

Kenyan interior ministry said on its Twitter feed that a camp belonging to the attackers had been destroyed by Kenyan military helicopters and jets, with “many killed”.

More than 60 passengers were on the bus when it was attacked, before dawn on November 22, about 19 miles from Mandera town.

The driver tried to accelerate away, but the vehicle became stuck in mud caused by recent heavy rains.

About 10 heavily armed men talking Somali ordered the passengers off the bus.

Kenya’s Red Cross said emergency workers were trying to retrieve bodies from the scene.

Security agencies were “in pursuit of the criminal gang” that carried out the attack, the interior ministry said. It described the assailants as “bandits”.

A local official quoted by Kenyan media said the government had failed to answer their pleas for extra security.

The attack comes after a week of heightened tension in Mombasa, which has suffered a series of al-Shabab attacks.

Security forces raided mosques in the city, saying they were being used to store weapons. The raids triggered apparent revenge attacks by Muslim youths.

Kenya has experience a series of al-Shabab attacks since it sent troops to Somalia three years ago to help fight the militant group.

Mandera, a remote area in Kenya’s north-east that shares a long and porous border with Somalia, has been one of the regions worst-affected by the violence.

On the Somali side of the border, al-Shabab is said to have a base that was recently bombed by Kenyan warplanes. It was not immediately clear whether this was the same base targeted by Kenya following Saturday’s attack.

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