Deadly rioting erupts after mosque attack
By The Associated Press KARACHI, Pakistan -- A mob angered by an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a KFC restaurant on fire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and bringing the day's overall death toll to 12, police said Tuesday. Security in Karachi shifted into "high alert," said Rauf Siddiqi, home minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital. "These incidents are happening one after the other. We are trying to find a link between them," he told the private Geo television station. "This is a criminal and merciless attack." The bomber slipped into the mosque during a gunbattle with police that left another attacker and two officers dead, and blew himself up during evening prayers Monday, killing one worshipper and wounding at least 26. An outraged crowd of about 1,000 Shiites, many beating their chests in mourning, rampaged afterward in this southern city, setting fire to cars and shops and killing at least six more people. Police recovered the bodies from a KFC restaurant burned by the mob. All were restaurant employees, senior police official Manzoor Mughal said. Four were burned to death, while the two others died after taking refuge in a refrigeration unit, he said. Also yesterday, dozens of Shiite and Sunni youths clashed in the area of the mosque bombing, triggering a shootout that left one Sunni Muslim dead and three people wounded. After restoring calm, police convened a meeting of clerics from the two sects to try to prevent further riots, said Wasim Akbar Baluch, a police official. The mosque bombing occurred at the Madinatul Ilm Imambargah in eastern Karachi, said Asif Ijaz, a police official. Three attackers stole an automatic weapon from a police guard outside the mosque and shot him to death, Ijaz said. Other policemen opened fire, killing one of the attackers and wounding another, he said. The third attacker managed to get inside the mosque and detonate a bomb strapped to his body, Ijaz said. "It appeared to be a low-intensity bomb because it did not cause major damage," said Mushtaq Shah, chief of police operations in Karachi. One of the three men involved in the mosque attack was hospitalized with injuries, police said. He gave his name as Mohammed Jamil and said he was from the outlawed Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group, which is accused of orchestrating several attacks against minority Christians, Shiites and government officials, police said. The group is mainly fighting Indian forces in India's part of Kashmir, but its supporters are also known for their links with al-Qaida. Some are believed to have trained in al-Qaida-run camps in Afghanistan. The attack came three days after a suspected suicide bomber attacked a Shiite religious gathering during a festival at a shrine near Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, killing about 20 people and injuring dozens. Political and sectarian violence between radical groups within the majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims is common in Karachi.
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