Suicide bomber kills 22 Pakistanis at prayer

A suicide attacker detonated a huge bomb that ripped through a Shiite Muslim mosque in eastern Pakistan during Friday prayers, killing at least 22 people and injuring dozens.

Bomb experts defused a second 11 pound bomb just outside the same mosque in the centre of Sialkot shortly afterward, police said.

Hundreds of people were praying inside the Zainabia mosque at the time of the blast, which severely damaged walls and left body parts scattered inside.

Hundreds of angry Shiites went on a rampage after the attack, and troops were being deployed at the mosque and at hospitals to restore order.

President General Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, said the attack showed that “terrorists have no religion and are enemies of mankind.” He renewed his government’s commitment to root them out.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes less than a week after Pakistan killed a top al-Qaida suspect in a shoot-out in southern Pakistan - leading the government to claim it had broken the back of the terror network in the country.

Witnesses reported that a man with a briefcase entered the mosque shortly before the blast and that the briefcase exploded, Sialkot police chief Nisar Ahmed said.

“We are almost certain it was a suicide attack,” he said. Bomb disposal experts were examining remains of the briefcase, and their initial assessment was that it contained explosives.

Police in Sialkot said at least 22 people were killed, although Pakistan’s private Geo television network reported 25 dead.

“Dozens of people have been taken to hospital in critical condition, and I think the casualties and death toll will rise,” Ahmed said.

Shortly after the blast, bomb disposal experts found another bomb in a briefcase and “successfully defused it,” said Mohammed Nazir, commander of the bomb disposal squad in Sialkot.

He said they spotted the briefcase outside the mosque, where hundreds of people were protesting at the time.

“This five kilogram bomb could have killed dozens of people if it had not been defused,” he said.

Another official at the police control room in Sialkot, 145 miles south-east of the capital, Islamabad, said the blast left a crater inside the mosque and had caused severe damage to the walls and shattered windows. Witnesses said many of the injured suffered burns.

Ahmed said a mob initially prevented police from entering inside the mosque. Outraged worshippers vented their anger by pelting police with bricks and stones, torching dozens of vehicles and damaging part of a hospital that was treating victims, before troops restored order. They also shouted slogans against the government.

Murid Hussain, who lives near the mosque, said there was human flesh scattered inside the mosque and smoke everywhere. One of his relatives was injured in the explosion and just remembered hearing a blast and then waking up in the hospital.

“I heard a big bang. I felt as if something has fallen from the sky. When I came out of my home and went to the mosque, I saw a doomsday scenario,” said resident Mohammed Nawaz, 26.

“People were crying, pieces of body and blood was scattered everywhere inside the mosque.”

Mosques of Pakistan’s Shiite minority have often been targeted in sectarian violence with majority Sunni Muslims. Most of Pakistan’s 150 million Muslims live in harmony, but there are radical elements on both sides of the sectarian divide.