Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on a bus in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi on Wednesday, killing at least 43 people, police said, in the latest attack directed against religious minorities this year.

The IS claims, as posted on Twitter, are set to raise fears over the Middle East-based jihadists’ growing influence after they announced in January the creation of a branch in what they called “Khorasan province”, encompassing Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of surrounding countries.

Thanks be to Allah, 43 apostates were killed and around 30 were wounded in an attack carried out by Islamic State soldiers on a bus transporting Shia Ismaili infidels in the city of Karachi.
– IS statement

Officers said at least six gunmen on motorcycles stopped the bus and fired at the passengers indiscriminately.

There were six attackers. They boarded the bus and carried out the shooting.

- Najib Khan, Police Superintendent

He said all the passengers were from the Ismaili community, a minority Muslim sect in majority-Sunni Pakistan.

Television channels carried pictures of a pink bus covered in bullet holes and lines of waiting ambulances.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan took to Twitter to condemn the attack.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, Taliban splinter groups have bombed several mosques belonging to religious minorities this year.

In March, suicide bombings outside two churches in Lahore killed 14 people and wounded nearly 80. Days later, a bomb after Friday prayers wounded 12 people outside a minority Bohra mosque in Karachi.

In February, 20 people were killed in an attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the northeastern city of Peshawar, and 60 were killed in a January attack on a Shi’ite mosque in the southern province of Sindh.

(With inputs from agencies)