Pakistan increased troops yesterday in a tense northwestern town where religious violence between rival Muslim groups killed at least 40 people this week, officials said.
Rival Sunni and Shiite Muslim groups perched on mountain tops surrounding the town of Hangu traded rocket fire overnight but no casualties were reported, officials said.
Authorities said local religious leaders and elders were cooperating with official efforts to douse sectarian tensions in Hangu, a small town with a background of sectarian friction and bloodshed.
"Hundreds of paramilitary troops have reinforced the security deployment in Hangu and areas around it to prevent sectarian clashes and restore order," a senior interior ministry official said.
A series of powerful blasts on Thursday -- one believed to be a suicide bombing -- targeted Shiites celebrating Ashura, the holiest day in their calendar, sparking large-scale rioting.
At least 40 people died and more than 70 were wounded in the blasts and the resulting mayhem, including four bus passengers and four truck drivers shot dead by unidentified gunmen.
A curfew was subsequently clamped on the town, as the army took control of the area and authorities in all four provinces tightened security to ease tensions between the rest of the country's majority Sunnis and minority Shiites.
"We are negotiating with rival groups and trying to persuade them to come down from their positions on hilltops," the mayor of Hangu, Ghaniur Rehman, said by telephone.
"At the moment guns have fallen silent and we hope peace will return to the city," Rehman said.
Pakistan's Sunni and Shiite communities largely coexist in peace. However, militants from the two sides have a history of violence that has claimed thousands of lives in the past 10 years.
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