Community leaders today hailed one of the victims of a massacre at a local Shiite mosque as a hero, saying he barred the doors to the house of worship as gunmen closed in, saving many of those inside.

Less than a day after police foiled a plot to kill American diplomats in Pakistan, US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca arrived in the capital to discuss the war on terror.

SHOOT-OUTS between political rivals killed three people yesterday, marring the first general elections in Pakistan since a 1999 military coup led by President Pervez Musharraf ended democratic rule.

A bomb ripped through a Shi’ite Muslim mosque deep in the interior of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, killing 12 worshippers, all of them women, and wounding several others, hospital officials said today.