A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Pakistani police during clashes at Islamabad's Red Mosque yesterday, killing at least 13 people, most of them police, officials said.
The blast came after hundreds of radical students briefly occupied the mosque in the heart of the capital after its official reopening, which followed an army operation there earlier this month in which more than 100 people died.
Policemen's caps and shoes lay alongside body parts at the scene of the blast in one of the leafy city's busiest bazaars, where police were resting after firing tear gas at stone-throwing protesters, an AFP correspondent said.
The bombing and the unrest at the mosque will place further pressure on President Pervez Musharraf, who earlier yesterday bristled at repeated US threats of a possible US strike against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Islamabad administration chief Khalid Pervez said 13 people were killed in the blast, including seven police, and 50 people wounded.
"We have found a severed head from the blast site. Most probably it was a suicide attack but a final report is awaited," he said.
A senior security official said it was confirmed as a suicide attack.
"A man detonated explosives strapped to his body among two rows of Punjab police constabulary members who were there on duty because of the unrest at the Red Mosque," the official said on condition of anonymity.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it comes amid a wave of violence that has killed more than 200 people in the wake of the week-long siege and subsequent storming of the hard-line mosque between July 3 and July 11.
"The incident was linked to the Red Mosque situation," Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said.
He added that the mosque had now been cleared of protesters and would remain closed until the security situation improves.
"I saw bodies flying through the air, some were without legs and some were without arms. I put as many as I could into ambulances," policeman Mukhtar Ahmad said at the scene, outside a popular restaurant in the Aabpara market.
Unrest erupted at the Red Mosque early in the day when students chased out a government-picked religious elder who was meant to lead the first Friday prayers there since the army raid two weeks ago.
"I was told everything would be peaceful. I was never interested in taking up this job and after today I will never do it," prayer leader Mohammad Ashfaq Ashfaq said as he left with a police escort.
Protesters using rollers daubed red paint over the walls, which had been changed to a peach color during government renovations. The unarmed demonstrators flew black jihadi flags with crossed swords from the minarets.
Hardliners then hurled rocks at armored police vehicles and officers in riot gear, injuring two police, officials said. Police fired tear gas at the demonstrators and arrested six people.
The blast happened shortly after the clash.
The students had demanded the return of the mosque's chief cleric, Abdul Aziz, who was caught trying to flee the compound in a woman's burqa during the siege and is now in jail awaiting trial on terror charges.
They chanted "Musharraf is a dog" and "Death to the Musharraf government."
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