Since the government's seizure of Lal Masjid in the national capital of Islamabad, there has been a growing insurgency by the Islamist Pakistani Taliban and others, especially in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, bordering and resultant from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
[3] Police official Hamid Shakil said that "Frontier Corps personnel were the target because the bomb was planted underneath their vehicle,"[3] though mostly civilians were killed.
[4] The deadliest attack came later in the day, when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a snooker hall at about 8:50 pm,[5] followed about ten minutes later by a car bombing outside the building after police and media personnel had arrived at the scene.
[2] A government official said that the bombings were likely Lashkar-e-Jhangvi's retaliation for the shooting of a Sunni cleric and the capture of weapons from a site believed to be controlled by the group, both of which had occurred the day before.
At least two other journalists suffered from more than minor injuries, including Jameel Ahmed, the engineer for Samaa TV, and Mohammad Hasan, a photojournalist for Independent News Pakistan.
[7][8] On 13 January, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited protesters in Quetta and agreed to dismiss provincial government officials, though he refused to implement military control in the city.
[12] Early on 14 January, he announced that Balochistan Chief Minister Aslam Raisani and his cabinet had been removed from their posts, with Zulfikar Ali Magsi appointed to lead the provincial government.