Two bombs planted in a car and motorcycle exploded at a gathering of Sunni Muslim radicals in central Pakistan before dawn yesterday, killing at least 40 people and wounding about 100 others in what police suspected was a sectarian attack.
The blasts ripped through a crowd of mourners leaving the overnight rally attended by several thousand in the city of Multan to mark the first anniversary of the shooting of extremist Sunni religious leader Azam Tariq, who was gunned down on the outskirts of Islamabad last October.
PHOTO: EPA
"It was dark and people were screaming for help," said one witness. "It was utter chaos."
About 2,000 angry Sunnis gathered outside a hospital where victims of the explosions in the city of Multan were taken, shouting "Shiites are infidels!" and slogans against the government, witnesses said.
The bombings came less than a week after a suicide attack left 31 dead at a Shiite mosque in the eastern city of Sialkot on Oct. 2 and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said it could have been a sectarian act of revenge.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz convened an emergency meeting and the Interior Ministry would propose a ban on large religious gatherings, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said.
The rally had ended and people were dispersing in pre-dawn darkness from a meeting ground in the Rasheedabad area when the car bomb exploded, said Sikander Hayat, police chief in Multan.
Two minutes later a second bomb attached to a motorcycle went off, deputy city police chief Arshad Hameed said.
Large patches of blood stained the ground and pieces of flesh lay scattered around. Nearby houses and shops were damaged.
Jamil Usmani, 26, who had been standing in a nearby parking lot with friends, said a stampede after the bombing caused many injuries.
"The explosion numbed our ears, we saw people falling on each other, everybody was crying, everybody was running," he said. "Many people were injured in the stampede, we started picking them up and asked passing cars for help."
Most of the casualties were followers of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (Soldiers of Mohammad's Companions), an outlawed Sunni group that Tariq headed and which has been blamed for many bloody attacks on Shiites, who make up about 15 percent of Pakistan's mainly Sunni population of 150 million.
Sipah-e-Sahaba was one of seven militant groups outlawed by Musharraf after he joined the US-led war on terror following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US.
Like other such organizations, it took another name after being banned -- Millat-e-Islamia (Islamic Nation). The leader of the renamed group, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, blamed Shiite radicals for the blast.
He appealed to his followers to remain calm. But addressing thou-sands gathered to offer funeral prayers, he demanded that the government track down those responsible within a week or he would call for a march on Islamabad.
Abdul Jalil Naqvi, a leader of the main Shiite militant group, the ban-ned Islami Tehrik Pakistan, denied the attack was carried out by Shiites and said it was an act of terrorism aimed at inciting a sectarian war.
"We condemn it," he said.
Officials said about 1,000 police were called from other areas, and soldiers were patrolling the city.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS