Pakistanis hunt for militants behind blast that killed at least 70 at Gulshan e Iqbal Park Lahore

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Arif Ali | AFP | Getty Images

A Pakistani relative carries an injured child to the hospital in Lahore on March 27, 2016, after at least 56 people were killed and more than 200 injured when an apparent suicide bomb ripped through the parking lot of a crowded park in the Pakistani city of Lahore where Christians were celebrating Easter.

Pakistani authorities hunted on Monday for breakaway Taliban militants who once declared loyalty to Islamic State after the group claimed responsibility for an Easter suicide bomb targeting Christians, that killed at least 70 people.

The attack on Sunday evening in a busy park in the eastern city of Lahore, the powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, killed mostly women and children enjoying an Easter weekend outing. Pakistan is a majority-Muslim state but has a Christian population of more than 2 million.

It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since the December 2014 massacre of 134 school children at a military run academy in the city of Peshawar that prompted a big government crackdown on Islamist militancy.

"We must bring the killers of our innocent brothers, sisters and children to justice and will never allow these savage inhumans to over-run our life and liberty," military spokesman Asim Bajwa said in a post on Twitter.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack late on Sunday night, and issued a direct challenge to the government.

"The target was Christians," said a faction spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said. "We want to send this message to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that we have entered Lahore."

Lahore is the capital of Pakistan's richest province, Punjab, and is seen as the country's political and cultural heartland.

Sharif's office condemned the blast as a cowardly act and said a response had been ordered, without elaborating.

In Lahore, markets, schools and courts were closed on Monday as the city mourned.

Rescue services spokeswoman Deeba Shahnaz said at least 70 people were killed and about 340 were wounded, with 25 in serious condition.

The group has claimed responsibility for several big attacks after it split with the main Pakistani Taliban in 2014.

It declared allegiance to the Islamic State but later said it was rejoining the Pakistani Taliban insurgency.

Pakistan has been plagued by militant violence for the last 15 years, since it joined a U.S.-led campaign against Islamist militancy after the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

While the army, police, government and Western interests have been the prime targets of the Pakistani Taliban and their allies, Christians and other religious minorities have also attacked.

Nearly 80 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a church in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2013.

The security forces have killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under the crackdown launched after the 2014 Peshawar school massacre.

Militant violence had eased but they retain the ability to launch devastating attacks.

Pakistan's security agencies have long been accused of nurturing militants to use for help in pursuing security objectives in Afghanistan and against old rival India.

But some, like the Pakistani Taliban, have turned against the state. They are fighting to topple the government and install a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Sharif's opponents have accused him of tolerating militancy in return for peace in his province, a charge he strongly denies.

Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of hard-line Muslim activists clashed with police in the capital, Islamabad, in a protest over the execution of a man they consider a hero for assassinating a governor over his criticism of harsh blasphemy laws.

Bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri Mumtaz shot dead Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011. Taseer, a prominent liberal politician, had spoken in support of a Christian woman sentenced to death under the law that mandates capital punishment for insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammad. Qadri was executed last month.

There was no indication of a connection between the protest in Islamabad and the bomb in Lahore.

Lahore bombing is faction's boldest bid to stake claim as Pakistan's most violent terrorists

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has made major inroads since it was founded two years ago after a split within the fragmented Pakistan Taliban

 A Pakistani police commando stands guard at a Lahore park following the suicide bombing that killed more than 70. Photograph: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

The bombing of Lahore’s most popular park is the bloodiest attempt yet by a new Islamic extremist faction to establish itself as the most aggressive and violent of the many such groups active in Pakistan.

The target was the country’s long-beleaguered Christian community, according to a credible claim of responsibility from Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a group founded about two years ago after a split within the fragmented movement known as the Pakistan Taliban.

Lahore park bombing: authorities search for militants behind attack that killed more than 70

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However, many Muslims were among the scores of victims when a suicide bomber detonated a nail-filled device near a children’s playground. This is unlikely to bother the perpetrators.

Extremist clerics have made sustained efforts to find theological justification for such casualties in recent decades and, though such arguments are contested by mainstream scholars, they are preached in hardline mosques and taught in many religious schools in Pakistan.

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, like the broader Pakistan Taliban, follow an extremist branch of the rigorously conservative Deobandi strand of Islam which, along with equally intolerant schools of practice influenced by those in the Gulf, has made major inroads in Pakistan in recent years at the expense of more open-minded local traditions.

The group, based in a restive zone along Pakistan’s frontier with Afghanistan, has been responsible for a string of attacks, often on government workers or religious minorities, and has explicitly said it is at war against an “unbeliever state”.

It styles itself the “real” Pakistan Taliban and is opposed to a strategy of negotiations adopted by the movement’s official leadership following a major assault on its strongholds launched in 2014.This latest attack appears designed to send a clear message to local policymakers, as well as exploit anger among what appears to be a significant number of Pakistanis following the execution earlier in March of a man who in 2011 shot dead a leading politician who sought to protect Christians.

More than 100,000 people attended the funeral in Mumtaz Qadri, the killer, in the city of Rawalpindi on 1 March. Riot police used teargas to dispel protests against the execution by conservatives on Sunday.

Qadri’s victim was the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, who had called for the pardoning of a Christian woman jailed under harsh blasphemy laws. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar appear to be making a push into Punjab, Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province which is also the power base of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister.More than 100,000 people attended the funeral in Mumtaz Qadri, the killer, in the city of Rawalpindi on 1 March. Riot police used teargas to dispel protests against the execution by conservatives on Sunday.

The group bombed a popular ceremony at the border post of Wagah in November 2014. Punjab has long been the fiefdom of Islamist militant groups which have relationships with Pakistani security services and usually refrain from striking within the country.

Officials from the police and other agencies in Lahore have long expressed concerns about other groups, especially those linked to the Pakistan Taliban, establishing networks in the city.

“We know they are here but don’t know why they haven’t attacked yet,” one senior police officer said in 2013. They have now.

Watch Conan O'Brien Remember Friend Garry Shandling

Watch Conan O'Brien Remember Friend Garry Shandling

"He was obviously hysterically funny pretty much all the time, but he was also extremely sensitive," host says of late comedian

Conan O'Brien, one of an entire generation of comics and writers inspired by Garry Shandling, paid tribute to the late comedian on 'Conan.'

Conan O'Brien, one of an entire generation of comics and writers inspired by Garry Shandling and a close friend of the Larry Sanders Show great, paid tribute to the late comedian on Conan just hours after Shandling's death at the age of 66. "This is a devastating shock to me and to just about everybody I know," O'Brien said. "I've had about three hours now to process that Garry is gone and this just doesn't seem real still, and I don't know when it will."

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Garry Shandling: 10 Best TV Moments »

While Shandling will be remembered most for his unique style of comedy, O'Brien mourned Shandling, the man and the mentor. "He was obviously hysterically funny pretty much all the time, but he was also extremely sensitive, he was complicated, and he had a ton of empathy for other people, and I want to make that point, that is something in this business that is very rare," O'Brien said. "He really did care about other people."

O'Brien told the story about how, after he acrimoniously parted ways with The Tonight Show, he went on vacation to Hawaii with his family, and Shandling happened to be staying at the same hotel; the story from Shandling's perspective was previously told in a 2010 GQ feature on the reclusive comedian. O'Brien and Shandling spent the entire vacation together, with Shandling helping to rehabilitate his friend.

"I was at a real low point, he counseled me, he cheered me up, he told me jokes, he told me about philosophy, he talked to me about how there are bigger things in the world and I was going to be fine," O'Brien said.

O'Brien then shared a clip from the first time he hosted the Emmys and Shandling collaborated on a bit for that awards show, which O'Brien called "a moment for me that's special, I'll never forget it."

Later on the show, Conan cut together a montage of Shandling's best Late Night With Conan O'Brien moments.

Alleged Ted Cruz Sex Scandal Had the Internet's Cruz Detractors Buzzing

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is battling an entanglement of rumors that allege the Texas senator is "hiding five different mistresses," according to the tabloid the National Enquirer. According to its source, identified as a "Washington insider," "private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had," and "the leaked details are an attempt to destroy what's left of his White House campaign." The supposed affairs are detailed in the Enquirer's most recent print issue.

Though unconfirmed, the rumor sparked chatter across social media Friday with the hashtag #CruzSexScandal. People on Twitter were skeptical at best, scathing at worst. 

Read more: Donald Trump Just Took His Wife Feud With Ted Cruz to a Horrifying New Low

Many flooded Twitter with jokes, because sometimes only memes can help to make sense of supposed spilt tea. Some users posted pictures of Clorox bleach to metaphorically erase the mental image from their minds. Wrote one user, "That moment when you realize Ted's getting more action [than] you!"

Healthy skepticism and quips aside, the supposed scandal does not come at an ideal time for Cruz, who is the GOP's No. 1 challenger to frontrunner Donald Trump in the polls. The drama also comes amid a tasteless back and forth between the two, which made both candidates' wives a target for their appearances. Specifically, a meme of a side-by-side photos of Heidi Cruz and Melania Trump circulated the web. 

Shots have been fired, and if past is prologue, this mess can only get uglier. One thing is certain: Twitter is prepped for a field day. 

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French nab suspect in‘advanced’ terror plot

Credit: AP

TIGHT SECURITY: Belgian soldiers, above, patrol yesterday outside the court in Brussels where Salah Abdeslam, the top suspect in last year’s deadly Paris attacks, was expected to appear before a judge.

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The French foiled a terror plot in the “advanced stages,” arresting one last night as the hunt for ISIS sympathizers spread, including raids in Brussels that netted six wanted in connection with this week’s horrific bombings.

Bernard Cazeneuve, France’s interior minister, said there were no links 
between the arrest and the Brussels attack Tuesday or the Paris massacre in 
November. The arrest was made northwest of Paris, and there were bomb squads at the site, according to 
authorities.

Cazeneuve said the person arrested was implicated at a “high level” in the plot that was in the “advanced stages.” There have been 75 arrests in France since the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and injured hundreds more.

Belgian prosecutors, meanwhile, say six people have been detained in raids around Brussels. Those caught have links to the massive attack Tuesday on the city’s airport and nearby subway system that killed 31 and wounded 270, according to authorities.

The developments show both neighboring countries are moving fast to make up for security blunders, one expert said.

“The terror network has overlapping players in both countries,” said Max Abrahms, a terrorism expert and Northeastern University professor. “Belgium and French authorities are operating frantically. It’s definitely clear there are multiple terrorism suspects and they are doing everything possible to get a handle on the situation.”

In another chilling report, authorities said the ISIS-
affiliated bombers in Brussels were also possibly eyeing an attack on a nuclear power plant in the country, according to multiple news reports. That unnerving scenario was bolstered by reports the bombers had 12 hours of reconnaissance footage that included showing the home of a top nuclear power official in Belgium.

Both Belgium and France sent troops to guard nuclear facilities after the discovery of the footage taken from the apartment of one of the suspects in the Brussels bombings.

Earlier this week, police found a large stash of explosives and other bomb-making material in a Brussels apartment that they believe was being used by the suicide bombers.

Two of the suicide bombers are believed to be brothers Khalid El Bakraoui and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, who attacked the subway and airport, respectively. Najim Laachraoui, who is believed to have made bombs used in the Paris attacks, was the other suicide bomber at the airport, according to authorities.

Mourad Laachraoui, Najim Laachraui’s younger brother, said that he is overwhelmed with the evil his twisted sibling unleashed, telling reporters that “I feel bad, that’s all — scared and saddened.” He said the family had no contact with Najim since he left for Syria in 2013.

He said his brother was “a nice boy — especially intelligent,” who read a lot and practiced the martial art of tae kwon do. He described their family as a practicing Muslim household, but said he couldn’t say what put his brother on the path to 
extremism.

He said, “I’m no psychologist, no idea.”

European authorities, meanwhile, are calling on the European parliament “as a matter of urgency” to adopt an agreement that would 
allow authorities to exchange airport passenger data.

The ministers issued a statement of solidarity with Belgium after an emergency meeting.

The joint statement condemned the “horrific terrorist acts” in Brussels and described them as “an attack on our open, democratic 
society.”

Herald wire services contributed to this report.