Attack frays Pakistan's nerves

A protestor throws a burning tire to disrupt traffic in Lahore on Saturday. Angry Pakistanis mourned the dead following a suicide attack on a Shiite Muslim mosque in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday. At least 44 people were killed and 65 wounded in Friday's attack on the packed mosque. PHOTO: REUTERS

The men killed patiently, survivors said on Saturday.

Saying looking "very relaxed," walking "here and there," in the words of witnesses, the three unidentified gunmen killed and killed and killed on Friday afternoon. Ten minutes after they entered a Shiite mosque, the attack ended: One assailant detonated a suicide bomb and Shiite worshippers beat the two remaining gunmen to death. By then, 48 Shiite Muslims lay dead or mortally wounded in what officials said was the worst sectarian attack in Pakistan's recent history.

Mohsin Ali Khan, a 25-year-old medical student who cowered on the floor with a leg wound, said the sounds would "pinch" his mind for the rest of his life. Five or six shots, then a pause as the gunmen found a new target. Five or six shots, then a pause.

When ammunition ran out, an empty magazine pinged off the mosque floor. A new magazine was loaded. The rifle was cocked. Then, again, five or six shots.

"The head cleric, he was saying something, but I couldn't understand it," Khan said from his hospital bed on Saturday, recalling another sound. "Maybe it was a sort of prayer."

On Saturday, Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, vowed to crack down on religious extremists.

"They are disgracing our religion," he said.

In Quetta, Pakistani soldiers patrolled the streets for a second day to deter rioting and revenge killings by Shiites. Police officials announced that they were questioning 10 to 15 Pakistanis and Afghans from inside and outside the city.

Shoaib Sadal, the inspector general of police, declined to say whether the men were members of known extremist groups. Speculation has centered on the Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Janghvi and Taliban members from Afghanistan.

City said they believed that outsiders had done the killing. While religious violence has flared in other cities for the last 15 years, killing more than 1,250 people, Quetta has remained relatively calm.

Both Sunnis and Shiites are Muslims, but they disagree over the line of succession from the Prophet Muhammad. Shiites make up 20 percent of the country's population. Sunnis make up 77 percent.

The attack came 17 months after Musharraf announced a crackdown on militant groups, as part of the fight against terrorism.

The attack itself showed that militants remained a threat; the care that victims received afterward showed the government's continued problems. After the attack, Shiites rushed wounded victims to a dilapidated public hospital nearby, found no doctors on duty and started rioting.

After a 20-minute delay that local doctors said cost some of the wounded their lives, the victims were taken to a well-equipped military hospital.

Shiites bitterly complained that no police officers were on duty at the mosque on Friday to guard against such attacks. Some pointed to a conspiracy. Others said police officers across the city were diverted to provide security for the planned visit of Pakistan's prime minister, leaving the Shiites here vulnerable.

"Aren't we Muslims?" asked Abid Azeem Ali, a 35-year-old Shiite elementary school teacher who lay in intensive care after surgery on Saturday. "We say the same prayers. We believe in the same prophet. Why is this happening?"

Some predicted revenge attacks by militant Shiite groups, but grieving worshippers on Saturday instead expressed anger at Pakistan's government.

Twenty-four after the attack, a heavy downpour had cleared much of the blood that lay outside the Asna Ul Asharia mosque.

But in the courtyard where the shooting occurred, shell casings, pools of blood and pockmarks on the pavement marked the attackers' path. At the far end of the compound, remains of the suicide bomber had been covered with pine cones and needles. About 30 bicycles and pairs of shoes sat where their dead or wounded owners had left them.

Gulam Ali, a 74-year-old government worker who survived the attack, said he did not want revenge; he wanted the government to arrest those responsible.

"The terrorists are so daring that they broke into this place," he said, referring to the mosque. "Is our administration so helpless? Where is this administration?"