Bomb blast kills 2 at Shi'ite mosque in Pakistan's Rawalpindi

ISLAMABAD A bomb blast in a Shi'ite mosque killed two people and injured six in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said, the latest in a string of deadly attacks targeting the minority sect over the past month.

Fahad Marwat, a spokesman for the Taliban splinter group Jundullah, claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for an ongoing army operation aimed at driving militants out of their North Waziristan stronghold along the Afghan border.

Local media reported that a security guard had prevented a suicide bomber armed with grenades from entering the mosque in Rawalpindi, which lies next to the capital of Islamabad in the northeastern part of the country.

Factions of the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for two other attacks on Shi'ites in the past month.

Twenty people were killed this month in an attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Peshawar, while 60 were killed in a Jan. 30 attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the southern province of Sindh.

(Writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by John Stonestreet and Crispian Balmer)