Gunmen kill Saudi diplomat in southern Pakistan
Gunmen on a motorbike shot and killed a Saudi diplomat as he was driving in Pakistan’s largest city on Monday, just days after two hand grenades were tossed at the Arab state’s consulate building, police in Karachi said.
The police believe the primary motive was sectarian tension between Islam’s Sunni and Shiite branches. But the attack also follows the killing of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden in an American raid on May 2.
Al-Qaida is a fierce opponent of the Saudi regime and has sworn revenge for the death of bin Laden. But no one immediately claimed responsibility for the diplomat’s slaying.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, the country’s most high profile militant group, called The Associated Press to say it did not kill the diplomat.
The spokesman, Ahsanullah Ahsan, added: “Although we believe Saudi Arabia is an even bigger slave to America than Pakistan, we are not involved in today’s killing.”