Pakistan reeling after deadly attack on lawyers

QUETTA, Pakistan — Many Pakistanis were in deep mourning Tuesday, a day after a suicide bombing directed at lawyers killed 70 people in the city of Quetta, touching a chord in the country’s long-simmering culture war.

By singling out lawyers, Islamic radicals appeared to take aim at a pillar of the country’s budding civil society — and a symbol of the supremacy of secular law in a modern state.

Tariq Lodhi, a former head of Pakistan’s main civil spy agency, said the attack was carried out by militants to “terrorize lawyers and judges,” who are handling cases involving militants accused of carrying out attacks in the country.

After his death, about 100 lawyers gathered at Quetta’s government-run Civil Hospital, where a suicide bomber attacked those mourning.

Survivors later described scenes of panic as the blast ripped through the emergency room, littering it with body parts.