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Religious violence leaves 35 dead in Pakistan, Afghanistan
 Sectarian Muslim violence marred the holiest day of the Shiite calendar, with at least 35 people killed and more than 100 injured in attacks and clashes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The violence erupted with a suspected suicide attack on Shiites in Hangu, northwestern Pakistan, as they celebrated Ashura, a mourning festival for the seventh-century death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson. Officials suspected militants linked to Sunni Muslims for the initial attack, which came with Muslim sentiment around the world already near boiling point over cartoons of Prophet Mohammed first published in a Danish newspaper.Officials said 31 people -- both minority Shiites and rival Sunnis -- died in a possible suicide bombing and subsequent rioting by enraged Shiite mobs, prompting the army to move into the town. More than 50 were injured. Provincial police chief Riffat Pasha said 23 people died in the initial attack and in armed clashes between Shiites and Sunnis in Hangu. Separately, four people died when gunmen fired on a minibus in Saidan Banda near Hangu and four truck drivers were shot dead after a mob torched their vehicles in the nearby Ibrahimzai area, a senior security official said. In neighbouring Afghanistan four people were killed and 94 wounded during clashes between the two sects in the western city of Herat, said Energy Minister Ismail Khan, a former governor of Herat. Hundreds of troops were rushed to Herat as street battles raged in the usually peaceful city. The annual Ashura festival marks the death of Imam Hussein at Karbala in modern-day Iraq in 680 AD. The festival is observed on the 10th day of the Muslim calendar's first month of Muharram. Many Shiites mark the ceremony by publicly wailing and by flagellating themselves with knives attached to chains. Pakistan had massively beefed up security for the Ashura parades, which have often been targeted by Sunni extremists. During Ashura in 2001, 12 people died in fighting between Sunnis and Shiites. Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said army and paramilitary forces had moved into Hangu to control the unrest after the attack ripped through Shiite devotees in the town's main bazaar. He said announcements had been made from local mosques urging calm, while security had been boosted across the country. But Hangu's mayor Ghaniur Rehman said the situation was "very bad" and witnesses reported continuing gunfire in the town, around 175 kilometres (110 miles) west of Islamabad, hours after the first incident. In contrast, the sectarian clash in Herat was first of its kind in Afghanistan for years, despite the country's war-torn history and an ongoing insurgency by the ousted Taliban movement. Two Shiite mosques in the city were torched and several cars set ablaze, while shop windows were smashed as men hurled stones and beat each other with sticks, residents said. The fighting appeared to have erupted after Shiites wrote slogans on cars belonging to Sunnis that praised Imam Hussein. Posted by: Pappy 2006-02-10 |
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