State Department spokesman John Kirby refused to confirm “a hundred percent” on Monday what the rest of the world had already figured out: The suicide bombers in Lahore, Pakistan, on Sunday had specifically targeted Christians celebrating Easter. After an initial State Department statement neglected to mention the fact that Christians were targeted, Kirby did acknowledge yesterday that “that certainly appears to have been the case.”
The devastating blast killed more than 70 Pakistanis, 29 of them children, leaving more than 300 wounded.
Separately, at a White House press briefing yesterday, Press Secretary Josh Earnest did acknowledge that Christians were the intended targets of the bombing, but he stressed that most of the victims were Muslims.
Kirby told reporters that he did not have “the fidelity of information to confirm overtly” what the terrorists responsible for the bombing have already admitted.
Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, the breakaway Taliban faction claiming responsibility for the attacks, told the Associated Press on Sunday that the suicide bomber “deliberately targeted the Christian community celebrating Easter.” He also said the attack was meant to protest Pakistan’s military operation in the tribal regions.
Referring to the State Department’s statement condemning the attack, which conspicuously contained no reference to the targeting of Christians, AP reporter Matt Lee asked, “There’s been some commentary about why you guys didn’t mention either the Easter connection or the Christian connection in your condemnatory statements over the weekend and again today. Do you believe the claim of responsibility that Christians were targeted and are targets?”
“We have no indications that their claims of responsibility are false, though I can’t sit here and confirm it a hundred percent,” Kirby said. “Therefore I have no indications that their, the motivation that they claim was the reason is also false, but this is all going to be investigated by Pakistanis.”