Pakistan Shi'ite leader: Sectarian attacks are 'genocide'

QUETTA (AP) - Pakistan's minority Shiite Muslims have started using the word "genocide" to describe a violent spike in attacks against them by a militant Sunni group with suspected links to the country's security agencies and a mainstream political party that governs the largest province.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group of radical Sunni Muslims, who revile Shiites as heretics, has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks throughout Pakistan.

Linked to al-Qaeda, it has been declared a foreign terrorist organisation by the US, yet it operates with relative ease in Pakistan's populous Punjab province, where Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and several other violent jihadi groups are based.

The violence against Shiites has ignited a national debate - and political arguments - about a burgeoning militancy in Pakistan.