A suicide bombing ripped through a Shiite Muslim procession yesterday in northwestern Pakistan, sparking riots during the Muslim sect's most important holiday. At least 22 people were killed and dozens injured, officials said.
Army troops took control of the area and a curfew was imposed as the Shiites vented their anger by burning shops and cars in Hangu, about 200km southwest of the capital, Islamabad, district police chief Ayub Khan said.
Ghani ur-Rehman, the top district administrator, said 22 people were reported killed and more than 50 wounded. He said more than 60 percent of the town bazaar had been burned down in the violence that following the bombing.
Akram Durrani, the top elected official in the province, said a preliminary investigation showed the attack was a suicide bombing. He announced a judicial inquiry into the attack.
A security official said that some of the fatalities died in gunfire between battling factions in the town after the bombing.
Police mounted road blocks on the road to Hangu. Reporters were barred from passing beyond Ustarzai, a town about 25km from the scene of the attack. Police even blocked three ambulances.
"We have orders that no one is allowed beyond this point," said Maqbali Khan, an officer commanding about 20 police at a barricade. He said that angry protesters in Hangu were burning vehicles. Soon after he spoke, two trucks of police from an anti-terrorist squad drove past the road block toward the town.
Mir Faisal, a local government chief in Hangu, said smoke was hanging over the town because of fires in the bazaar and he could hear gunfire. He said that army and paramilitary troops had arrived but it was still too dangerous to go outside.
"Things are tense and we can't go out," he said.
Hangu Mayor Ghani Ur-Rahman said the situation was under control by early afternoon. He said dozens were injured, although Sunni and Shiite leaders were helping to calm the situation.
The explosion hit a procession of hundreds of people in a bazaar soon after it emerged from the main Shiite mosque in the mid morning.
"The situation is very grave there. People are fighting. Police are trying to control them. Our priority is to get the injured to hospital, but angry and emotional processions are attacking police vehicles and even ambulances," said a senior Interior Ministry official.
Sunni and Shiite clerics in Hangu used mosque loudspeakers to urge the faithful to calm down and avoid further violence, which could spread to other processions across Pakistan.
A prominent Shiite cleric, Allama Mehdi Najfi, in the southwestern city of Quetta said, "This attack has spread anger among our people throughout the country, but I appeal to them not to clash with any member of other religious sects."
The attack targeted Shiites observing Ashoura, the most revered religious holiday of their faith. The event marks the 7th century death of the Imam Hussain, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Hussain's death fueled a rivalry between Shiites and Sunnis over who should succeed the prophet.
During Ashoura, Shiites dressed in black weep, pound their chests and the flail their backs with chains and blades as they mourn Hussain's death.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS