18 people were killed in a bus attack in Pakistan

Gunmen opened fire on a passenger bus in Kohistan, northern Pakistan, in an apparent sectarian attack, killing 18 people, police officials said.

“All the people on board were Shia, and at the moment it looks like they were targeted by armed men from the local Sunni community,” a senior police official told Reuters.

The bus was travelling on Tuesday from Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad, to the northern town of Gilgit.

Police officials said the vehicle came under attack in an area inhabited by two Sunni tribes about 165km (102 miles) north of Islamabad.

The majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims, with Shias accounting for around 15% of a population of around 180 million people.

Militants from the two sides have killed thousands of people in tit-for-tat attacks since the rise of Islamist militancy in the country in the 1980s.