Pakistan blast hits Shia procession - 28 Dec 09

A suicide bomber has blown himself up in Karachi. The attack happened during a procession of Shia Muslims on their holiest day. Mobs unleashed their anger after the blast, setting ablaze buildings, shops and cars, and attacked local police. Paramilitary forces have since taken control of central Karachi, and officials are appealing for calm, but already 40 people are dead, and more than 100 others injured.

Bomber hits Karachi procession

At least 30 people have been killed after a suicide bomber struck a procession of Shia Muslims in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, according to police sources. The explosion struck on Monday as Shia worshippers marked Ashoura, the holiest event on the Shia Muslim calendar. Police sources told  that at least 80 people were injured in the blast, with many of those in a critical condition. The attack sparked riots in Karachi with angry mourners throwing stones at ambulances, torching cars and shops and firing bullets into the air. "A deliberate attempt seems to be afoot by the extremists to turn the fight against militants into a sectarian clash and make the people fight against one another," Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, said in a statement. The Pakistan Rangers, a paramilitary force, took control of several restive areas of Karachi after the blast, officials said. "People have been saying that the government has been apathetic to the listening to the warnings of potential attacks and people's fears," Talat Hussain, the director of news at the local  TV. "Any number of groups come to mind who may have carried out the attack ... The game clearly is to disrupt Pakistan." Rehman Malik, the interior minister, called for people to show restraint and asked that Shia processions over the next two days be cancelled following the attack. Bomber tackled Major Aurangzeb Khan, a spokesman for the paramilitary troops who were protecting the procession, said the death toll would have been much higher if one of the soldiers had not spotted the suicide bomber and tackled him. "He just took him down, and the bomber detonated himself," he said. Authorities found the intact head and torso of the suicide bomber on the third floor of a nearby office building, where it had broken through a window, Munir Sheikh, a bomb disposal squad official, said. About 16kg of high explosive were used in the bombing, he said. Pakistan had tightened security to protect mass processions ahead of Ashoura, deploying tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces. The attack in Karachi was the third on the commemorations in Pakistan this year. A suicide attack at a Shiite mosque in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Sunday killed seven people, while wxplosives wounded 17 people in Karachi on the same day.