Pakistan Mosque Attacks Leave at Least 40 Dead

Gunmen stormed two Pakistani mosques belonging to a minority sect in Lahore Friday that worshipers hostage and sparking a gun battle with police that left 17 people dead, officials said. An official says suicide squads killed 56 people in attacks on a minority sect's mosques in East Pakistan.

The attack in Lahore against the Ahmadi community. They are exposed as heretics by mainstream Muslims for their belief that their sect's founder was a prophesied savior of the Koran.

Taliban swung rifles and grenades attacked a couple of mosques, a minority religious sect in eastern Pakistan Friday killed at least 40 people and take a number of worshipers hostage before he was overpowered by police.

Both mosques in the Ahmadis, also known as Qadiani and has tens of thousands of members. Rights groups say the sect has long been persecuted in Pakistan and has been a random target for sectarian attacks.

Lahore, a city eight million near Pakistan's border with India has been facing growing Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked attacks in a nationwide bombing campaign has killed more than 3300 people in three years.