“Our men carried out these attacks and we will carry out more in retaliation for government operations against our people in the northwest,” Pakistan Taleban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from undisclosed location.
Several thousand people were attending celebrations to mark the anniversary of the Sakhi Sarwar shrine in Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab province when the bombers struck crowds outside the complex, said government administrator Iftikhar Saho.
A stampede followed the bombings, but it was unclear whether that caused any casualties.
Emergency coordinator Natiq Hayat said 100 other worshippers were wounded, 20 of them critically.
TV footage showed ambulances racing to hospitals and volunteers helping blood-soaked victims.
Shrines in Pakistan range from one-room tombs in small villages to large complexes in major cities that attract thousands every day. There has been a series of bloody attacks on them, including one that killed 47 people at the nation’s most revered shrine in Lahore last year.
Local and foreign Islamist militants have carried out hundreds of attacks in Pakistan over the last three years, targeting government buildings and security forces, Western targets like embassies and hotels as well as religious minorities and Muslim sects they consider heretical.
The government and the army have tried to crack down on the militants, but have struggled to unite the nation against the threat and face persistent allegations they are protecting some extremists. Many Islamist politicians do not publicly criticize the militants, preferring to spread conspiracy theories that American or Indian agents are responsible. These views are widely aired, often uncritically, in some media.
