Four members of a Catholic family were killed in a militant attack in southern Pakistan a day after the minority community celebrated Easter. The deadly gun attack took place on April 2 in the Shah Zaman area of Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province. The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency. "Four Christian relatives were going to a nearby market on an auto-rickshaw when two unknown gunmen on a motorbike opened fire on them," police officer Moazzam Jah Ansari told ucanews.com. "It was a targeted attack and an act of terrorism." Police said the casings of 9mm bullets were recovered from the crime scene. Pervaiz Masih, Tariq Masih, Imran Masih and Firdous Bibi died in the attack while a 10-year-old girl was injured. A neighbor, Aftab, told ucanews.com that Pervaiz Masih, a rickshaw driver, was taking his relatives to an ice cream shop when they were targeted just outside their home. "Pervaiz Masih had been living in Quetta for 10 years. His relatives came from Lahore and Dubai for the first time to celebrate Easter with him on March 29," Aftab said. "They came back from a dinner and were going out to eat ice cream in a nearby market when gunmen sprayed bullets at them. The bodies are being sent back to Lahore for burial." Aftab said the whole community was in a state of shock. A day earlier, Gul Hussain, a member of the minority Shia Hazara community, was gunned down in Quetta. A sit-in is being staged by the community to demand action against the perpetrators. In October last year, a hand grenade was thrown at a Pentecostal church in the same area. A week before last Christmas, two suicide bombers stormed a packed Christian church in Quetta, killing at least nine people and wounding up to 56. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the carnage.</s>ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - At least four people have been killed in an attack targeting Christians in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, officials say, the latest violence to target members of the minority in the South Asian country.

The four men, all members of the same Christian family, were shot to death outside a relative's home in the Shah Zaman neighbourhood of the city on Monday evening.

"One young girl has been wounded, and four people have been killed, they were all Christians," Ali Mardan, a senior police official, told Al Jazeera by telephone.

The family had travelled to Quetta to celebrate Easter with relatives, a family member told Al Jazeera.

"They were guests of ours, they came from Punjab [province] to celebrate Easter. As they left the house to go to the bazaar after dinner […] they were fired upon," said Tariq Masih, a relative to the victims.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

At least four people were killed in a separate, unrelated shooting incident in Quetta on Monday, officials said.

That incident was related to a personal enmity, police said.

Pakistan has been battling armed groups including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies, who seek to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the country, since 2007.

Violence has dropped in recent years, as a series of military operations have succeeded in displacing the TTP and allied groups from their strongholds in northwestern Pakistan, but sporadic large casualty attacks continue.

Attacks often target Pakistan's minorities, including Shia Muslims as well as Christians, Hindus and members of the Ahmadiyya sect.

In December, a suicide bomb and gun attack targeting Sunday services at a church in Quetta killed at least eight people and left dozens of others wounded.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for that attack in a statement, but provided no proof of its involvement.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, has claimed responsibility for several attacks targeting civilians in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, in recent years, including an attack on a Sufi shrine and multiple attacks on Hazara Shias.

On Sunday, a Hazara Shia man was killed and another wounded in a targeted attack in a Quetta bazaar, local media reported.

In all, at least 242 people were killed in attacks in Balochistan province in 2017, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal research organisation.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera's Web Correspondent in Pakistan. Additional reporting by Saadullah Akhtar in Quetta.</s>Gunmen in Pakistan have killed four members of the minority Christian community in the country's southwest, in an attack claimed by Islamic State terrorists.

Police said the victims were traveling in a rickshaw Monday when armed men on a motorcycle stopped them and opened fire. The attack took place in a Christian-majority neighborhood in the city of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province.

Police said the family members, which included three men and a woman, appear to have been targeted because of their faith.

The attack comes a day after Pakistan's Christian community celebrated Easter.

IS took responsibility for the attack through its Amaq News agency.

The terrorist group said its regional affiliate, Khorasan Province, carried out the attack but provided no evidence, according to SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist threats.

Baluchistan province has seen an increase in militant attacks in recent months.

Baluch separatist militants, the outlawed Pakistani Taliban and extremists linked to the Afghan Taliban allegedly operate out of the Pakistani province.

Pakistan authorities said IS loyalists are using bases in "ungoverned" areas of neighboring Afghanistan for attacks against Pakistan.

Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a packed church in Quetta last December in which nine worshippers were killed, and dozens more were wounded.</s>QUETTA : Four members of a Christian family were gunned down in Quetta on Monday.

The family was travelling in a rickshaw when armed men on a motorcycle intercepted them and opened fire in Quetta city.

A woman was rushed to hospital. Her father and three cousins were killed. “It appears to have been a targeted attack,” provincial police official Moazzam Jah Ansari said. “It was an act of terrorism,” he added. The attack comes a day after Pakistan’s Christian community celebrated Easter on Sunday. Around two per cent of Pakistan’s population are Christians.

Separately, at least five persons including Levies personnel were killed and five others sustained injuries in a clash between two groups at Qambarani Road area.

According to police sources, two groups opened fire upon each other over a dispute. As a result, four people were killed on the spot while seven other received wounds.

The bodies including Levies personnel Naveed Ahmed, Takri Ghulam Rasool Bangulzai, Bashir Ahmed and Abdul Hameed and the injured were rushed to Civil hospital. One of the injured Amanullah succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

Three injured were identified as Pir Muhammad, Machi Khan and Abudl Hameed while two other injured were not yet identified. The bodies of the deceased were handed over to the heirs after completion of medico-legal formalities. Police registered a case and started investigation.

Some unidentified armed men shot dead a man near National Highway near Dasht area of Mastung district on Monday. According to Levies sources, Muhammad Azam was gunned down by some unknown armed assailants near National Highway. The attackers fled from the scene after the incident.

The body of deceased was handed over to the heirs after completion of medico-legal formalities. Levies force registered a case and started investigation.</s>An affiliate group of the "Islamic State" militant organization has taken responsibility for Monday's attack on the Christian family, but it was unclear who was behind the unrelated attack on the Muslims, police said. Both attacks took place in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

"Three members of a family, including a woman, were killed when the motor rickshaw they were (in)... came under attack," Moazzam Jah Ansari, the provincial police chief, said of the attack on the Christians in Quetta on Monday. "The rickshaw driver, who was also a Christian by faith, is among the dead," he added. A child was injured and taken to hospital.

"Initial investigations suggest the people were ambushed because of their faith," Ansari said. Christians make up only two percent of the Pakistani population of 200 million people, most of whom are Muslims. The religious minority has faced discrimination and violence.

In another attack in Quetta on Monday, gunmen on a motorcycle killed five Muslims.

In addition to Islamist extremists, ethnic Baloch militants have been engaged in a long-running separatist insurgency in the region.

Earlier on Monday the death sentences for ten convicted militants were confirmedn in Pakistani military courts. The militants had been found guilty of taking part in separate attacks that had killed 62 people.

Among the victims of the attacks were a well-known Sufi singer, Amjad Sabri, who was killed together with his father in Karachi in 2016.

Military trials, closed to the public, were reinstated after the 2014 attack on a Peshawar school in which more than 150 people, mostly young students, were killed. The moratorium on the death penalty was also lifted at that time.

Quetta, where Monday's attacks took place, is the capital of the western Pakistani region of Baluchistan. The city lies close to the border with Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed in a drone strike near Quetta in 2016.

Pakistan was one of the largest recipients of American aid until the Trump administration announced in January that it was suspending $900 million (€731 million) in security assistance to Pakistan until the country took action against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley accused Islamabad of "playing a double game for years" with its selective support for various militant groups operating from Pakistan.

The US military has relied on Pakistani air and ground routes for supplies to its troops in Afghanistan, estimated at around 14,000. Their mission there is to train, advise and assist the Afghan military who are fighting the Taliban and Islamic State militants.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.</s>At least seven persons were killed in two separate firing incidents in different localities of Quetta city on Monday. In the evening, four members of the Christian community travelling in a rickshaw were killed in a firing incident on Quetta’s Shah Zaman road. Police official Muhammad Anwar Khokhar said unidentified attackers riding a motorbike opened fire on a rickshaw which resulted in the death of four members of the Christian community. A minor girl was also injured in the attack, he added.

 Law enforcement agencies reached the site of the incident soon after the incident and shifted the bodies to Civil Hospital Quetta. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack; moreover, police have also been unable to ascertain any reason for the incident.In a separate incident earlier in the day, three people were killed and four injured in a firing incident on Quetta’s Qmbrani road.</s>Quetta, Pakistan: The militant group Islamic State on Tuesday claimed responsibility for killing four members of a Christian family in southwestern Pakistan.

A statement issued by the group claimed that militants belonging to IS fired on the group of Christians as they were travelling in the city of Quetta, killing four on Monday.

Islamic State has affiliates in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, many drawn from existing Islamist militant groups, who support their vehement sectarian views against Shiite Muslims and non-Muslims.

The family was travelling in a rickshaw when armed men on a motorcycle intercepted them and opened fire in Quetta city, the capital of Baluchistan province.

The family had come to visit relatives in Quetta's Shahzaman road area, where a large number of the city's Christian community lives.</s>Four Christians were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in southwestern Pakistan on Monday, police said, in an apparent attack on the religious minority.

The incident occurred in a Christian-majority neighbourhood in the city of Quetta, capital of the Balochistan province.

"Three members of a family, including a woman, were killed when the motor rickshaw they were (in)... came under attack," Moazzam Jah Ansari, the police chief of the province, told AFP.

"The rickshaw driver, who was also a Christian by faith, is among the dead."

Police officials said this appeared to be a targeted attack on Christians in the area.

"Initial investigations suggest the people were ambushed because of their faith," Ansari said.

A child was injured in the attack and is receiving treatment at a hospital, officials said. Ghulam Ali Baloch, a local official, said her injuries were not life-threatening.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamist militants have in the past attacked Christians and other religious minorities in Balochistan.

In December last year, two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Quetta church, which was packed with worshippers, killing nine people and wounding over a dozen.

In addition to Islamist extremists, ethnic Baloch militants have been fighting a low-intensity separatist insurgency in the province for years, often bombing infrastructure like railroads and power lines.

Christians make up less than two percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan's 200 million people, and have long faced discrimination and violence.</s>Four members of a Pakistani Christian family were shot dead in Quetta city, the police said on Tuesday. On Monday night, unidentified armed men intercepted a vehicle the family was travelling in and opened fire, Quetta Police spokesperson Mohamed Ramzan told Efe news.

The attack comes a day after Pakistani Christians, who are a mere 2 per cent of the population, had celebrated Easter Sunday.

 Attacks against the Christians have been frequent in Pakistan.

In December 2017, a week before Christmas, two suicide bombers had stormed into a packed church in Quetta and killed 10 and wounded at least 44, in an attack claimed by the Islamic state. In March 2016, the Taliban targeted Christians celebrating Easter in a park in Lahore killing 71 people.</s>ISIS says it was behind a terrorist attack on a Christian family in Quetta, Pakistan, that killed four people one day after Easter Sunday. The relatives had been riding in a rickshaw when motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire on them.

Three men and a woman died in the attack. A fifth person riding in the rickshaw — a 12-year-old girl — survived and was taken to the hospital, Pakistan's Dawn news agency says.

"By targeting the family on the road, the gunmen found a weak link: Pakistani forces had stepped up security around churches, to stop militants who target Christians on their holiest days. But the roads are still vulnerable.

"The family was traveling in Quetta, a garrison town near the Afghan border. It's the same town where ISIS militants stormed a church compound right before Christmas. They killed nine people."

According to Pakistan's Express Tribune, roughly 2 percent of Pakistan's population is Christian.
ISIL claims responsibility for the deaths of four Christians in Quetta, Pakistan on April 2nd.