Pakistani troops deployed in Karachi as violence continues

Pakistani troops were deployed on the streets of Karachi today to curb rioting and vandalism that flared in the southern city for a third day following a suicide bombing that killed 57 people at a Sunni Muslim prayer service.

The deployments, the first there since Shiite-Sunni unrest in the early 1990s, took place hours before mass funerals were expected for three leaders of the moderate Sunni Tehrik group who were among those killed in Tuesday’s attack, one of Pakistan’s deadliest ever.

“We are deploying troops in the city at sensitive places and if needed the troops will help the civil administration in maintenance of peace and order,” said Col. Idrees Malik, a Pakistan army spokesman in Karachi.

An Associated Press reporter saw an army truck packed with more than two dozen brown-uniformed soldiers patrol Karachi’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Tehrik group and the site of much of this week’s violence.

Today, dozens of youths took to the streets again, burning at least two buses and a car and hurling stones at police forces in various parts of Karachi, said Kazim Ali, the chief of Karachi’s fire brigade.

Karachi police chief Niaz Siddiqui said security forces were on high alert for the evening funerals of the Tehrik leaders, which were expected to draw tens of thousands of mourners.

Leaders from about a dozen Sunni groups yesterday called for a countrywide general strike tomorrow – the Islamic sabbath – to protest against the bombing, said Mufti Muneebur Rahman, a senior Sunni cleric.

Officials have said Tuesday’s bombing was aimed at wiping out the leadership of Tehrik, a rising Sunni Muslim political force.

“It was a suicide attack and part of a hatched conspiracy to eliminate (Tehrik’s) leadership,” said Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.