My World Earth: Karachi Pakistan hit by suicidal bomber kill 43 people during religious procession

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Karachi Pakistan hit by suicidal bomber kill 43 people during religious procession

The southern Pakistani city of Karachi shut down in mourning on Tuesday as the death toll from Monday's suicide bomb attack on Shiite Muslims procession rose to 43.

Chief Minister of Sindh Province Syed Qaim Ali Shah has declared Tuesday a province-wide public holiday. All government and private offices are closed and transport off the roads in the provincial capital of Karachi.

The deadly violence also impacted the stock market in the financial hub, with the benchmark KSE-100 Index opening down 1.5 percent Tuesday but recovering in the early afternoon.

Sindh Secretary Hashim Raza Zaidi said that several more injured died of wounds in hospitals, adding that up to 90 people were injured and some of them in critical condition in the most deadly attack in Karachi in two years.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Altaf Hussain, leader of the Mutahida Qaumi Movement said that it was handiwork of the Taliban militants.

Angry protesters attacked government buildings and set markets, banks and vehicles on fire in different parts of Karachi after the attack.

Pictures taken by Xinhua photographer Anwar Abbas show the panicked people and burning police vehicles on the busy Jinnah road in Karachi. Abbas was injured in the riot.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik visited Karachi on Tuesday and set up an investigation committee.

It was the third bomb blast in Karachi in three days as the worshippers have been commemorating Ashura, the holy event on the Shiite Muslim calendar, and the parade in Karachi was the biggest in Pakistan.

President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, political and religious leaders called for calm and restraint after the "most reprehensible act of terror".

A suicide bomber has killed 30 and wounded 60 more in an attack on a religious procession in Pakistan.

The bomber targeted Shia Muslims celebrating the holy day of Ashoura.

In the wake of the blast in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, Shias attacked the security forces who had been guarding the march for their failure to prevent the blast.

The marchers also clashed with Sunni protesters who tried to stop their procession. Police cars and ambulances were damaged in the rioting.
Television pictures showed a big cloud of smoke over the scene and reporters said angry worshippers attacked journalists and police and set fire to shops and vehicles.

Karachi has a long history of ethnic and factional violence, although it has been spared the brunt of Taliban attacks over the past couple of years.

Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed appealed for calm. He said the severed head of the suicide bomber had been found.

'I was walking in front rows when the blast went off about 50 metres away and thick cloud of smoke immediately engulfed the entire spot,' said witness Moin Rizvi.

Ashura falls on the 10th day of a 40-day mourning period during the Islamic calendar's first month, Moharram, which commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, who was killed in battle in 680 AD in the Iraqi city of Kerbala.

Processions by minority Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan are often attacked by majority Sunni Muslim militants.
Embattled Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to end the bloodshed. But militants have struck back with bombings in several cities since the army launched a major offensive in their stronghold of South Waziristan in mid-October.

The United States says Pakistan must crack down harder on militants along the border who cross into Afghanistan and attack U.S.-led troops fighting the Taliban.

But Pakistan, which nurtured militants fighting Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, sees the Afghan Taliban as leverage against enemy India's influence in the country.

Pakistan's military is focused on battling its homegrown Taliban who have extended their reach, as shown by a Dec. 4 suicide and gun attack on a mosque near army headquarters.

Violence has intensified since July 2007, when the army cleared out militants from a radical mosque in Islamabad, and victims have included former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide bomb and gun attack after returning home from self-imposed exile in December 2007.

The attack was the latest in a wave of violence to hit Pakistan since the army started taking on Islamic militants allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Around 500 have died in terrorist strikes since October.

The Taliban, who reject any ties with the United States and other Western power, are determined to impose their version of Islam, including public whippings and hangings for those who violate their rules.

The International Monetary Fund last week issued a vote of confidence in Pakistan's economy -- in virtual recession -- by approving a $1.2 billion loan payment. That could ease some of the pressure on Zardari, Bhutto's widower, at least on one front.

Investors have factored in violence across the northwest in their trading but analysts have said trouble in Karachi could hurt equities.

Financial markets were closed on Monday for Ashura.

A photo journalist runs from the site of a suicide bomb attack after an angry mob started to burn vehicles and beat journalists in Karachi December 28, 2009.