Pakistan: 19 dead, dozens injured as bomb explodes in Karachi mosque(Shiites attacked)

AFP via Yahoo! News ^ | 06/01/04 | N/A

[TigerLikesRooster]

19 dead, dozens injured as bomb explodes in Karachi mosque

2 hours, 13 minutes ago Add World - AFP to My Yahoo!

KARACHI (AFP) - The death toll from a bomb attack on a Shiite Muslim mosque in Pakistan's largest city Karachi rose to 19 overnight, police say.

Four worshippers who had been wounded in the attack during evening prayers Monday died in hospital during the night, Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said.

Another three people were killed in shootouts between police and protestors as violence engulfed the troubled city of million people.

The blast came a day after a prominent Muslim scholar was killed in the city triggering running street battles, and prompted President Pervez Musharraf to say he would take "major decisions very soon" if the situation was not brought under control in Pakistan's largest city.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid reported the warning and said Musharraf was gravely concerned over the deteriorating situation but did not elaborate on what steps the president intended to take.

The blast came as dozens of worshippers were offering mughrib, or evening prayers, in the mosque located in the same area where prominent Sunni Muslim scholar Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai was assassinated on Sunday.

"Some 15 people have been killed and 35 are wounded," police operations chief Tariq Jamil told AFP. Some of the injured were in serious condition, he said.

The dead and injured were rushed to different hospitals in the populous city. Police said a 10-year-old child was among those killed.

Witnesses said the explosion was so powerful that it caused cracks in the concrete dome of the mosque and gave graphic detail of one victim being blown to pieces by the explosion.

One worshipper, Mohammad Jamil, said he saw a man get out of a car and throw something inside the mosque.

"Immediately, as I was entering the mosque there were two loud explosions and then something hit me and I don't know what happened afterwards," he told reporters at Civili hospital.

The mosque floor and wall were splattered with blood and rescue workers were seen collecting limbs and pieces of human flesh scattered all over the place.

An angry mob immediately gathered outside and went on the rampage, burning a filling station and exchanging fire with police, witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the clashes.

The Shiite Imambargah, or mosque, is situated only one kilometer (less than a mile) from where Sunni scholar Shamzai was killed by unidentified assailants who sprayed his vehicle with bullets, also injuring his son and driver.

The assassination triggered violent protests and incidents of arson in the Binouri town area, where authorities had deployed large numbers of police and paramilitary rangers to contain the unrest.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing but Karachi police chief Asad Ashraf Malik was quick to describe it as an act of terrorism.

The teeming city of 14 million people on Pakistan's southern Arabian Sea coast has been gripped by violence since May 7, when a suicide bomb blast at a Shiite mosque killed 23 worshippers and injured around 100.

On May 25 parcel bombs killed two people at Karachi's busy port and on May 26 two successive car bombs near the US consul-general's residence killed one policeman and injured 32 people.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Payback for the killing of a pro-Taliban cleric?

[Moonman62]

Is this the same bombing as the one posted six lines down in breaking news?

[Bobby777]

TROP^(TM) is as TROP^(TM) does ...

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #2

You are right. Thanks for pointing it out. I alerted Admin Moderator to put it on the frontpage section.

[jerrydavenport]

i'd say things are begining to look good.

we need to channelize islamic hate and energies away from the west towards other muslims.

we need to pit the sunnis against the shiites. Divide the islamic world along linguistic, ethnic, sectarian and regional lines and throw the whole islamic world into a civil war.

a similar arrangement for iraq would also save american lives by channelizing the militants against each other.

The iran-iraq war as a brilliant success.

we now need to throw Pakistan into a war with India that would destroy it's WMD might. then to bring peace to pakistan we would carve it up into several small nations ,based on their different ethncities. This would give us people like the kurds who would see us the liberators and thank us for their independence.

similar measures could be adopted for iran, afghanistan, saudi arabia and all other islamic trouble makers to rob them of the might to field armies and the wealth to sponsor terror.

[Southack]

First guess is that al-qaeda is shifting resources away from attacking the West towards starting a Shi'a/Sunni civil war that they can manipulate and take advantage of as time progresses to seize power in various Asian, Middle-Eastern, and African nations.

Frankly, al-qaeda has been taking a beating in areas such as Afghanistan and Iraq and the Sudan where it has faced off against American/allied regular and special forces.

So it isn't out of the question that they may fully regroup and alter strategies more towards the weaker areas of Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Somalia, etc.

If so, they actually increase the danger to us...as we in the West could easily grow complacent over time if we see no more attacks against us for several years.

[The Scourge of Yazid]

Since when has a deranged lunatic who perpetrates crimes against humanity been described as a "religious scholar" by the international news media?

Am I missing something here?

[Dog]

Pakistan's nukes are the prize..

[sgtbono2002]

Muslims use their Mosques to hide in knowing US troops wont fire on them there , but when they attack each other they blow up their mosques. Strange people.

[Cronos]

ok, no one's said this yet -- I hope the Shiite don't hit the fan!

[Cronos]

we now need to throw Pakistan into a war with India that would destroy it's WMD might.

The Indians won't comply as we've been pumping $7 billion worth of aid (military and otherwise) into Pak. If we turn off the military aid tap and take over the nukes (seems we are "guarding" them already), the Indians would be ready to play ball

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

we need to pit the sunnis against the shiites. Divide the islamic world along linguistic, ethnic, sectarian and regional lines and throw the whole islamic world into a civil war.

Hey! If we export liberals to islamic countries we could accelerate this process of fanning the flames of hatred and divisiveness. Hmmmm... Paging Al Sharpton.

[jerrydavenport]

we are not only guarding them, the $3billion that we pumped into their economy during the 80"s gave them their nukes in the first place, while they turned the money meant to be used against the soviets into al qaeda.

How could we ever trust this country again to pump another $7 billion into it. This is suicide.

the iran-iraq war ahd worked so well to contain khomeini, why couldn't we just repeat the thing with pakistan.

india had the nukes, the military, everything to take pakistan out. all they needed was a nod fromus.

[jerrydavenport]

the whole islamic world deserves the iran-iraq war treatment.

channelize their hate and enegies against other muslims.

when they are exhausted, like they got exhausted in afghanistan after 2 decades of warfare, we'll go in and take them over.

afghans were exchausted through 2 decades of warfare, while the somalis and libyans were exhausted through povery. both measures work fine.

let's exhaust them first.

it's funny to see these islamic crooks put spin on inter islamic rivalry saying it would benefit al qaeda.

we'll go in after the two are done fighting and crush whatever little fighting spirit or economic might they have left.

iran-iraq war should be implemented as an example for the entire islamic world.

we can secure ourself by stopping all travel from the islamic countries and sanctioning them.

then when we see the muslims weak, we'll go in give them a bloody nose.

[Southack]

Please remove me from your Ping list.

[swarthyguy]

>>india had the nukes, the military, everything to take pakistan out. all they needed was a nod fromus.

History will judge whether the strategy to leave Pakistan alone while the AQKhan network was exploited and rolled up was correct.

Would've been a different world if India's offer of Sept 12 2001 offering the US full use of air and seaports for a thorough fumigation of Pakistan and Kashmir had been taken up.

As it is, all we can do is hope that Mush's act works.

That is, grudging, sporadic cooperation with the wot virtually dictated on his terms.

[swarthyguy]

My gut says the nukes are safe, whether Mush dies or the place erupts.

Jihadis may exploit a worsening law and order condition to push Mush out.

Depends if the govt can contain this outburst from spreading.

I think they will.

[omega4179]

What does the Arab Street say about this?!

[jerrydavenport]

Pakistani agents assasinated two indian prime ministers, including the husband of their current leader sonia gandhi.

They have been sending al qaeda terrorists into india for the past 15 years, bombing crowded places, blowing planes out of the sky, bombing their parliament etc.

India would have been only too glad to oblige, if the state deptt hadn't pressured india to back down.

I mean here we have a sponsor of terror, a proliferator of WMD's, the creator of taliban and al qaeda, and india want to save americans lives and take care of this country for us, but the state deptt prevents them.is the state deptt suicidal or what.

take a look at my following post

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1144737/posts

[csvset]

Witnesses said the explosion was so powerful that it caused cracks in the concrete dome of the mosque ..

Yep.