Attacks this morning on Shia Muslims worshippers during a religious procession in a city in southwestern Pakistan have resulted in the deaths of at least 41 people with more than 150 others wounded.
The attacks happened in a congested area of Quetta, the main city in southwest Baluchistan province during a religious procession.
Soon after, a Sunni Muslim mosque, a television network office and several shops were set on fire as Shias rioted in parts of the city, and an exchange of gunfire took place near the scene of the initial attack, police said.
Mohammed Wasim, a doctor at the Central Government Hospital in Quetta, said the facility had received 19 bodies. The Combined Military Hospital reported 22 bodies were brought in since the attack early this afternoon.
Qamar Zaman, an assistant police inspector in Quetta, said that more than 150 people had been injured, some of them critically.
Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar said he had imposed an immediate curfew in the city of 1.2 million to maintain law and order. He said troops and paramilitary forces had been deployed and were bringing the situation under control.
Government officials said the carnage was an effort by extremist groups to destabilise the country. President General Pervez Musharraf has become a staunch ally of the US war on terrorism, earning the ire of Islamic fundamentalists.
He narrowly escaped two assassination attempts in December.
"Obviously, the purpose of this attack was to create unrest," Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. "This is a very sad incident and we condemn it."
The violence happened hours after a series of coordinated blasts in Iraq struck major
Shia Muslim shrines in Karbala and Baghdad, killing scores of religious pilgrims.