Senior Cleric Killed in Pakistan Attack
By ZARAR KHAN
KARACHI, Pakistan - Gunmen killed a senior pro-Taliban cleric on Sunday, sparking riots across this southern Pakistani city by his Sunni Muslim supporters who ransacked shops, banks and a police station.
Assailants riding in two cars and a motorcycle shot Sunni Muslim cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a fervent critic of the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, early Sunday as he traveled in a pickup truck to his Islamic seminary in the east of Karachi, said police official Fayyaz Qureshi.
A bodyguard of the cleric returned fire and wounded one of the six attackers, Qureshi said, quoting witnesses. Four others in Shamzai's vehicle were wounded _ one of his sons, a nephew, his driver and a body guard _ but none seriously.
Shamzai, who was in his 70s, died of gunshot wounds in a nearby hospital. No one claimed responsibility for the killing, and there were no arrests.
Angry students from Sunni Muslim seminaries at ethnic Pashtun-dominated areas of Karachi poured onto the streets, setting fires and pelting passing vehicles with stones. Riot police and paramilitary rangers were deployed.
Police opened fire to contain the crowds, who shouted slogans against rival Shiites, raising fears of sectarian unrest. Police said two protesters suffered gunshot wounds.
"Our task is to protect Shiite worship areas as we fear a backlash on these areas," said Maj. Gen. Javed Zia, the chief of the paramilitary rangers in the city. "We are coordinating with police to maintain law and order."
Shamzai, a soft-spoken and scholarly man, was a strong supporter of Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime. He headed the Jamia Islamia Binor Town religious school, where thousands of students get Islamic education.
He rose to prominence after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America when he led a delegation of clerics from Pakistan to Afghanistan in a last-ditch effort _ that failed _ to save the Taliban from U.S. attack in late 2001 for hosting al-Qaida.
Aftab Shaikh, a government adviser on home affairs, described Shamzai's shooting as a targeted killing, and said authorities had warned him his life was at risk and had given him a police bodyguard.
After Sunday's shooting, hundreds of his supporters raided a police station near his school, beating up three policemen, and setting fire to vehicles, said Abdul Rashid, an officer there. Desks and files were strewn on the floor and smoke billowed from the fire.
Other Shamzai supporters _ virtually all seminary students wearing beards, traditional white caps and tunics _ set fire to three bank branches, ransacked shops, and partly destroyed a cinema and a gas station.
Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said two rioters were wounded by police gunfire, and six police were injured by stone-throwers.
Karachi _ Pakistan's largest city of 14 million people and the country's commercial center _ has been the scene of recent sectarian violence and terrorist attacks, including twin car bombings near the U.S. Consul's residence last week. On May 7, a suicide bombing at a Shiite Muslim mosque killed 22 people.
Much of the violence is blamed on Islamic militants, angered by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's support of the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan, but clashes also occur between rival Sunnis and Shiites.
Shamzai had met with Osama bin Laden sometime before the Sept. 11 attacks, and the reclusive, one-eyed leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
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