DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suicide bomber killed 27 people and wounded 65 yesterday in an attack on a funeral procession for a Shia Muslim gunned down a day earlier in a northwestern Pakistani city, officials said.
Sectarian violence between militant Sunni Muslims and Shia groups has plagued the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the western bank of the Indus river and close to the South Waziristan tribal region, where support runs deep for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
“The blast occurred when a funeral procession for a Shia Muslim murdered a day earlier was passing by,” said Syed Mohsin Shah, the area’s top administrator.
Police said they had found the body parts of the suspected bomber.
“It’s a suicide blast. We have found the severed legs of the suspected bomber,” said a police officer who had been part of the escort for the procession.
Other witnesses said they had seen a motorcyclist drop off the bomber, who then ran among the mourners before detonating the explosives strapped to his body.
After the latest outrage, people enraged by the attack vented their anger by burning vehicles and ransacking shops. Gunfire also broke out briefly.
Authorities imposed a curfew and police and troops patrolled the town, which lies 270km (168 miles) southwest of the capital, Islamabad.
The majority of Pakistan’s Muslims are Sunni, but about 15 per cent of the 170 million nation are Shia. Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat sectarian violence going back to the 1980s.
Sectarian violence has flared up since last year as security analysts say al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who are Sunni and are bitterly opposed to Shias, have stirred up sectarian strife in order to expand their influence across the northwest. – (Reuters)