Pakistani Church Bombed Killing 17 and Injuring at Least 80

Seventeen Christians were just slaughtered and at least eighty others were injured in a jihadist suicide bombing of a church in Pakistan.

On March 15, 2015, two Christian churches in Youhanabad, Lahore in Pakistan were targeted.  Suicide bombers brutally interrupted peaceful Sunday worship services were at both a Protestant and Catholic Church, killing at least seventeen people and injuring at least eighty others. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks through one of their affiliate groups, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar.

Eyewitnesses told the European Centre for Law and Justice’s (ECLJ) affiliate in Pakistan the harrowing details. Two attackers rushed the doors of Christ Church, one shooting at bystanders while his accomplice sprinted towards the entrance to detonate a bomb inside. The voluntary Christian security guards—Khalid Bashir Obaid Sardar, and Zahid Yousaf—tackled the terrorist to the ground to prevent him from entering the church and he detonated the bomb, killing himself, the three guards, and Sardar’s pregnant wife, Ambreen, among others.

At the same time across town, two other jihadists sprinted towards St. John’s Catholic Church with a similar strategy and all-too-similar goal of killing Christians. Another heroic voluntary security guard, Akash Masih, caught the suicide bomber as he attempted to scale the church’s exterior wall. The attacker detonated the bomb, killing and injuring more Christians who had gathered for prayer and worship.

Unfortunately, these two attacks continued the tragic cycles of violence.

The ACLJ’s European affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice, condemns these recent brutal attacks against Christians and Christian churches in Pakistan. Radical jihadist extremists continue to target Christians and other minority faiths around the world whose love of peace and religious freedom challenges their ideology of death and destruction.

We’re mobilizing our international offices to protect the persecuted Church. Sign our petition and join with us. America can and must do more to protect persecuted Christians around the globe.

As ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow recently testified before Congress, “We’re at a point in history right now if we look at what is taking place just in the Middle East—I’m not even going to include most of North Africa—there is a 9/11 every single day and some days much worse.”

Sadly, with each passing day, the headlines are proving it right.