13 killed in Pakistan mosque bomb blast

A suspected suicide bomb exploded at a Shiite Muslim mosque packed with worshippers in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, today, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores of others.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the blast as a ”heinous act of terrorism” and ordered an immediate investigation to trace the culprits.

The attack occurred shortly at a mosque inside a government-run religious school, shattering windows and pockmarking the walls with shrapnel and splattered blood. Bits of flesh and pools of blood lay all around as rescue workers tended to the wounded.

The school, which houses students aged four to 18, has separate mosques for Sunni and Shiite Muslim worshippers. Witnesses said the school had let out early, as it normally does on Fridays. Most of the victims were adults who came to the mosque for prayers.

Dr Razar Ali said 12 dead were brought to Karachi’s Civil Hospital, and 215 wounded, of which 45 were admitted. Most of the rest were released after treatment for minor injuries or had been transferred to other hospitals.

Another body and five more injured were taken to another hospital.