Gunmen kill eight Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan

Eight Shi'ite members of Pakistan's ethnic Hazara minority were killed and one wounded when gunmen opened fire on a bus in the volatile province of Baluchistan, police said.

The men were returning from a vegetable market when gunmen intercepted the bus.

Hundreds of Shi'ite Hazaras have been killed in bomb attacks and shootings in southwestern Baluchistan in the last few years.

No one immediately claimed responsibility. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a radical Sunni militant group, has carried out many gun and bomb attacks on Hazaras in the past.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has virtually turned Quetta, where the Hazara community is concentrated, into a hunting ground for Shi'ites, with leaflets shoved under doorways warning they are infidels deserving to die.

Given the history of attacks on Hazaras, police usually provide them with security when they go shopping in the main fruit and vegetable market in the city of Quetta. This group however had not informed the police of their movements.