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    Pakistan mosque toll 19; suicide attack blamed
    (Agencies)
    Updated: 2004-06-01 14:23

    Pakistani police on Tuesday blamed a suicide bomber for a blast at a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in the port city of Karachi as the death toll from the attack rose to 19 in apparent tit-for-tat sectarian violence.


    A policeman stands before a bus set on fire by angry poeple to register their protest against a blast in Shiite Muslims mosque, Monday, May 31, 2004 in Karachi, Pakistan. [AP]

    Three others died in clashes with police sparked by the explosion during evening prayers on Monday. The blast wounded at least 50 people, some seriously.

    "It was apparently a suicide attack, because we did not find any crater caused by bomb explosion," a senior police official said, on condition of anonymity.

    "We could not gather much evidence because angry people did not allow us to enter the mosque. The situation is tense. There is a high deployment of police and rangers in Shi'ite areas."

    Police said there was the possibility of more violence when funerals for the victims were held on Tuesday.

    The attack on the Ali Raza Imam Bargah mosque followed Sunday's killing of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a senior cleric from Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslim sect.

    It was the second bloody attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Karachi in less than a month.

    A suicide bomber killed 24 people and wounded 125 in a suicide attack on another Shi'ite mosque blamed on Sunni extremists on May 7.

    The volatile city had feared fresh inter-Muslim sectarian violence after Shamzai's killing and the blast came despite the deployment of 15,000 police and paramilitary troops to guard mosques, in anticipation of a backlash.

    Enraged Shi'ite rioters set fire to 20 vehicles, two filling stations and the office of a local bank overnight.

    Police shot and killed three rioters who snatched an ambulance and fired on police and troops. Police fired repeated volleys of tear gas to disperse the protesters.

    SUICIDE ATTACK

    State television said President Pervez Musharraf had ordered the provincial government in Karachi to take immediate steps to restore order and act against those responsible.

    The mosque targeted in the bombing was less than a mile from where Shamzai, a pro-Taliban cleric who called for "jihad," or holy war, against the United States, was killed a day earlier.

    While the latest bombing smacked of domestic sectarianism, ingrained hatred for the United States surfaced among Shi'ites, along with grief and anger and many chanted "Down with America."

    Analysts and diplomats have expressed fears the new round of sectarian violence could provoke attacks on Western and other minority targets.

    Anti-Americanism among Shi'ites in Pakistan dates back to U.S. opposition to the Islamic revolution in neighboring and predominately Shi'ite Iran.

    It has not ebbed despite the U.S. focus on containing Sunni militancy after the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the mood has been exacerbated by U.S. clashes with Shi'ites in Iraq.

    Violence between Sunnis, who make up about 70 percent of Pakistan's 97 percent majority Muslim population and Shi'ites, who account for 20 percent, has plagued Pakistan for decades. It has killed more than 150 people in the past year alone.

    Karachi suffered a series of militant attacks on Western targets after Musharraf threw his backing behind the U.S.-led war on terror after the September 11 attacks.

    Last Wednesday, a policeman was killed and more than 30 people hurt when two car bombs exploded outside the Pakistan-American Cultural Center near the home of the U.S. consul.

     
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