Another 45 Slain as Karachi Violence Soars

Stock Market Plummets as Zardari Issues 'Shoot on Sight' Orders

The latest round of politically motivated killings in the key Pakistani city of Karachi is continuing to soar out of control with another 45 people slain today and 100 more wounded, putting the two day toll at 74.

Today’s violence was even more random than it had been in previous days, with a group of armed men attacking a pair of passenger buses in the Banaras Chowk neighborhood, killing 10 people and wounding 20 others.

The violence saw the Karachi Stock Exchange continuing to drop precipitously, as the nation’s financial capital seems to be more or less entirely out of the government’s ability to control.

Increasingly desperate to come up with a solution for violence which has continued to crop up, and with growing opposition criticism, the Zardari government announced that it has issued “shoot on sight” orders for police and other security forces in the city, which seems an odd way to reduce the number of people being randomly shot.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.