A Pakistani militant group behind a series of bloody assaults on minority Shiite Muslims has said it carried out attacks on a bus carrying women students and a hospital that killed at least 25. The extremist Sunni outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi said a female suicide bomber struck the bus in Quetta, capital of the restive Baluchistan province on Saturday, killing 14 women students. A follow up attack around 90 minutes later on a hospital treating survivors left at least 11 dead and led to a prolonged gun battle between security forces and militants occupying part of the building.

Weeping relatives gathered Sunday to identify the charred remains of loved ones killed in a double attack in Pakistan's troubled southwest claimed by a banned Sunni militant group. At least 25 people were killed on Saturday when militants blew up a bus carrying female students in Quetta, capital of restive Baluchistan province, and then stormed a hospital where survivors had been taken for treatment. The extremist sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), responsible for a string of outrages against Pakistan's Shiite Muslim minority, said it was behind both attacks.

Kabul, Jun 11 (EFE).- Seventeen civilians were killed and 39 others wounded Tuesday in a car-bomb attack targeting a bus carrying employees of the Afghan Supreme Court, Kabul's deputy police chief told Efe. The vehicle rigged with explosives was detonated at around 4:30 p.m. in Masoud Square, near the U.S. Embassy, Dawood Amin said, adding that the fatalities include women and children. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the strike.

A Taliban suicide car bomber on Tuesday targeted staff at Afghanistan's top court, killing 14 civilians and wounding 38 others in the second attack in two days in the heavily fortified capital, police said. Women and children were among those killed and injured in the powerful explosion at the entrance to the Supreme Court, near the US embassy as buses waited to take court staff home at the end of the working day, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsiblity and threatened further attacks on the judiciary if it continued to sentence to death members of its militia.