At least 32 worshippers die in mosque bombing
Another 52 people were wounded, Interior Ministry spokesman Iftikar Ahmed said.
Some witnesses said the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers, while others said attackers threw grenades into the mosque, where an estimated 2,000 worshippers were gathered for Friday prayers. One man is in police custody.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest to target Pakistan’s Shi’ite minority. Radicals among Pakistan’s Sunni majority have been blamed for similar attacks in the past.
Shi’ite Muslims angered by the blast rioted in Quetta’s streets, burning cars and tires. Gunfire could be heard as small mobs later gathered near the mosque and lit fires. Paramilitary forces were deployed to restore order, police inspector Shaoib Suddle said.
Police imposed a curfew on Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province and a city of roughly 1.2 million people, about a third of whom are Shi’ites. There was no indication when the curfew would be lifted.
One man was in police custody in connection with the attack, Suddle said. It wasn’t immediately clear how the suspect was linked to the explosion. Ahmad Ali, who suffered shrapnel wounds in the explosion, said he saw two suicide bombers enter the mosque.
“One of them was placing something that I guess was the bomb when he was seen by a security guard at the mosque. The guard killed him and the other one blew himself up,” Ali said.
Other witnesses said grenades were thrown into the mosque. President Pervez Musharraf, in France on the final leg of an international tour, vowed to act very strongly against those responsible for the attack.
“It is unfortunate there are some elements in Pakistan who undermine what Pakistan stands for and for what the vast majority stands for,” Musharraf told a news conference in Paris.
Pakistan’s information minister blamed terrorists, without identifying them. “The purpose of this attack is to disrupt law and order, and nothing else,” Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.
Violent groups from the Sunni and Shi’ite sects in Pakistan, a country of 140 million people, have sprung up in recent years. Shi’ites were targeted in two separate attacks last month in Quetta.
On June 2, two gunmen riding motorcycles shot and killed a Shi’ite Muslim prayer leader, Syed Niaz Hussain.
On June 8, two gunmen, also riding motorcycles, killed 11 policemen, most of whom were Shi’ites. The attackers sprayed a truck full of policemen with machine-gun fire.
Musharraf has banned several militant Muslim groups in Pakistan, including extremist Sunni Muslim organisations that have been blamed for earlier attacks on their Shi’ite brethren.
The Shi’ite-Sunni split in Islam dates back to a 7th century dispute over the succession of authority after the death of the prophet Mohammed.
