Thousands riot after gunmen kill senior Pakistani cleric

GUNMEN killed a senior pro-Taliban cleric yesterday, sparking riots across the southern Pakistani city of Karachi by thousands of his Sunni Muslim supporters.

At least three policemen and four protesters were injured in gunfire exchanges following the death of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, police said. Angry crowds shouted slogans against Shi'ite Muslims, raising fears of sectarian unrest and ransacked shops, banks and a police station.

The riots started after attackers in two cars and a motorcycle shot the fervent critic of the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A bodyguard of the cleric returned fire and wounded one of the six attackers. Four others in Shamzai's vehicle were wounded one of his sons, a nephew, his driver and a bodyguard 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.

Government adviser Aftab Shaikh described the shooting as a targeted killing and said authorities had warned the cleric that his life was at risk.

Tens of thousands of Sunnis were expected to join a six-mile funeral procession for Shamzai after evening prayers. Some 15,000 police and paramilitary rangers most of the city's police force were being deployed to cover it.

After the shooting, angry students from Sunni seminaries in ethnic Pashtun-dominated areas of the city poured onto the streets, setting fires and pelting passing vehicles with stones.

In the worst clashes, about 2,000 rioters attacked a building housing a bank and a newspaper. Police in armoured cars fired in the air and with tear gas, and gunmen in the crowd fired back at them.

Shamzai 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 an Islamic education. He rose to prominence after the September 11 attacks on America when he led a delegation of clerics from Pakistan to Afghanistan in a last-ditch effort to save the Taliban from US attack.