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5:36am (UK)
Mosque Bomb: President Pledges Action Against Rioters
"PA"
Pakistan’s president has pledged to put down rioting that broke out after a bombing that killed at least 16 people at a Shiite Muslim mosque.
Yesterday’s bomb attack in Karachi happened a day after the murder of a top Sunni cleric.
Pakistani officials said the bomb that ripped through the mosque during evening prayers also wounded 38 people, could have been revenge for the assassination a day earlier of a senior Sunni Muslim cleric in Karachi, Nazamuddin Shamzai.
Hundreds of Shiite youths rioted after the explosion at the Imam Bargah Ali Raza mosque. The rioters burned shops and vehicles and blocked highways and the main railway line, raising concerns of fierce sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis.
Provincial police chief Kamal Shah said two men trying to steal an ambulance were shot dead. Seven others were injured when police opened fire to disperse the crowd.
The explosion was the latest in a series of terror attacks in Pakistan’s largest city. It was not clear yet if it was the work of a suicide bomber.
Much of Karachi’s violence is blamed on Islamic militants, angered by President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the US-led campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan, but clashes between rival Sunni and Shiite Muslims are also common.
Information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Musharraf expressed grief over the killings and quoted him as saying he would take an “important step” in response. He did not elaborate.
The blast cracked walls, destroyed an inner office and badly damaged a room where people wash up before praying at the mosque, near the city centre on Karachi’s main highway. It also shattered windows in a tall building opposite the mosque.
Karachi police chief Asad Ashraf Malik said at least 16 people were killed and 38 injured. He said a body retrieved from the scene was being examined to determine whether it was that of a suicide bomber.
A worshipper inside the mosque, Ghulam Ali, said he thought a bomb had been thrown inside from a passing car. He described hearing a thud and seeing a speeding car drive away before the blast.
The mosque then filled with smoke and people inside ran around in panic, said Ali, who was bleeding from his wounds.
“I heard a big explosion, followed by flames from the front of the mosque. And I saw two injured people falling on the road, bleeding, and one had no legs,” said Ghulam Hussain, a fruit seller.
Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city of 14 million people and the country’s commercial centre – has been the scene of recent sectarian violence and terrorist attacks. Those include two car bombings near the US consul’s residence last week and a May 7 suicide bombing at a Shiite Muslim mosque that killed 20 people.
Police have formed a special task force to investigate the killing of Shamzai, a cleric in his 70s who had been a strong supporter of the former Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan and had met al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
Witnesses said his assassins included as many as six gunmen riding in two cars and a motorcycle. They sprayed Shamzai’s car with bullets on Sunday morning, killing him and wounding one of his sons, a nephew, a driver and a police bodyguard.
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