Pakistani police launch probe into identity of mosque suicide bomber

PAKISTANI police have launched an investigation to learn the identity of a suicide bomber who killed 15 people in an attack over the weekend on a Shiite mosque in the north-west city of Peshawar, an official said.

Meanwhile, the chief minister of North West Frontier Province, of which Peshawar is the capital, called for calm amid fears the bombing could spark a wave of sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and minority Shiite Muslims.

No group has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s bombing in central Peshawar that wounded more than 30 other people and came as Pakistan’s

Shiites began their most important annual festival, Ashoura, which has often been a target of anti-Shiite violence.

It has been a tumultuous week for Pakistan. On Wednesday, thousands of Islamic activists rallied in the capital Islamabad to protest against the demolition of two mosques that authorities said were built in violation of the law.

The 5,000 protesters marched from the city centre and dispersed peacefully at a nearby market while hundreds of riot police armed with batons kept a tight vigil.

Police armoured cars guarded the city’s diplomatic enclave amid fears that the crowd might try to storm it as they did during protests in February 2006 against Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The protests continued yesterday, when hundreds of Islamic activists staged a sit-in to protest the demolition.

In the aftermath of the weekend’s bomb attack, Chief Minister Akram Durrani asked the general public to demonstrate “patience and maintain religious discipline,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.

Most Muslims from the majority Sunni and minority Shiite sects coexist peacefully in Pakistan, but militant groups on both sides are blamed for sectarian attacks that claim scores of lives every year.

Heavily armed police and security forces in pickup trucks and armoured personnel carriers patrolled streets in Shiite-dominated areas in Peshawar on Sunday, with no reported violence.

Investigators have collected human remains and bomb shrapnel from the scene of the bombing, said Fayyaz Toru, head of investigation department of Peshawar police.

Toru would not speculate on who might be behind Saturday’s attack in Peshawar or a motive, only describing it as a “terrorist act.”