PAKISTAN: A major Muslim holiday in Pakistan and Afghanistan became a sectarian battleground yesterday when a suicide bombing and several bloody riots left at least 32 people dead and scores injured.
An explosion tore through a throng of worshippers as they marched through Hangu, 125 miles west of Islamabad in Pakistan during a procession to mark Ashura, the high point of the Shia religious calendar. Police said a suicide bomber caused the blast.
Enraged Shias rampaged through the remote town in retaliation, firing shots in the air, clashing with police and torching shops and a bank. Hospital officials later confirmed 27 deaths, some from gunshot wounds, and most of the town bazaar was burned to the ground.
Soldiers and anti-terrorist police rushed to restore order, erecting barricades around the town and imposing a curfew. Senior Sunni and Shia clerics used mosque loudspeakers to appeal for calm and prevent the violence spreading across the country.
Another five people died in the western Afghan city of Herat after a brawl erupted between Sunnis and Shias over the alleged desecration of a sacred flag. Fighting intensified after a grenade was thrown and a Shia mosque set on fire, drawing hundreds of people into the melee. At least 27 people were injured, a local doctor said.
Ashura marks the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Hussain at Kerbala in Iraq in the seventh century. During annual processions, thousands of Shia men dressed in black and wailing loudly thrash their backs with chains and blades in a sign of mourning for Hussain.
But in recent years the holiday has become a flashpoint for tensions between extremists from the Sunni sect, who make up about 80 per cent of Pakistan's Muslim population, and the Shia minority.
Businesses were closed and security was tightened in all major cities to guard against possible violence. The capital, Islamabad, was virtually deserted while much of the western city of Quetta, where 44 people died in an Ashura massacre two years ago, was barricaded.
Despite the precautions, authorities were unable to prevent the attack in Hangu, in the North-West Frontier province, which information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed termed a "conspiracy" to trigger unrest between Sunnis and Shias. "No Muslim can do this thing. Whoever has done this is a terrorist," he said.
The suicide bomber hit a crowd of 300 worshippers after they left the main Shia mosque, beating their chests. "All of sudden there was an explosion in the procession," Asar Hussain, who had shrapnel wounds to the head, torso and neck, told AP news agency.
Thick smoke drifted through the streets and sporadic gunshots rang out throughout the afternoon as soldiers in armoured personnel carriers attempted to restore calm. The security forces exchanged fire with protesters.
Calm was restored by evening and Akram Durrani, the chief minister of North-West Frontier Province, announced a judicial inquiry into the attacks.
Sunnis and Shias generally co-exist peacefully in Pakistan but there are extremists on both sides. The last major atrocity occurred last March, when 46 people died in the bombing of a Shia mosque in the south-western town of Fatehpur.