22 dead in bomb attack on Shiite mosque in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Oct 1 (AFP) - A suspected suicide bomb blast ripped through a Shiite Muslim mosque during Friday prayers in the eastern Pakistani city of Sialkot, killing at least 22 people and leaving dozens injured, police said.
Hundreds of worshippers were packed into the Mistri Abdullah Imambargah mosque in the city center when the huge explosion tore through the building, police spokesman Mohammad Ihsanullah told AFP.
"The death toll has risen to 22," police chief Nisar Ahmed told AFP.
"Some of the injured are still in a critical condition in hospitals," Ahmed said.
"We believe the bomber carried the explosive into the mosque in a briefcase which he detonated while sitting amongst the worshippers and also blew himself up," an intelligence official, who would not be identified, told AFP.
"It is an act of terrorism..." Ahmed earlier told AFP. "We believe a suicide bomber carried out the dastardly attack at a time when hundreds of worshippers were present inside the mosque for Friday's prayers."
Ahmed said several hundred angry protesters poured onto the streets outside the mosque after the blast and clashed with police.
Witnesses said body parts and blood were spattered across the interior of the mosque, and that the explosion left a large crater and caused extensive damage to the mosque building.
"We were hearing the Khutba (sermon) when suddenly there was a big bang," said worshipper Hamid Naqvi. "There was panic and there was blood and screams all around," he said.
Naqvi, who was hit by shrapnel, was speaking from the city's Allama Iqbal hospital where doctors said at least 34 wounded people had been taken.
"Some of the bodies have serious burn wounds," Dr Mohammad Ali told AFP.
Television channels showed gory scenes inside the mosque with pieces of human flesh and limbs lying around in pools of blood. People were shown crying and beating their chests. Angry people clashed with police and burnt several police vehicles.
Private television channels reported that the army has been called in to quell the unrest after the blast.
President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz both condemned the attack.
The incident "clearly shows that terrorists have no religion and are enemies of mankind", a state-run Associated Press of Pakistan report quoted Musharraf as saying in a statement.
Aziz said killing people at a place of worship was a "highly condemnable" act.
"Islam is a religion of peace and abhors terrorism."
The attack came five days after Pakistani security forces killed the country's most wanted Sunni Muslim extremist, Al-Qaeda operative Amjad Farooqi, in a shootout in the south of the country.
Farooqi, the alleged mastermind of several attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf, was an activist in the Harkatul Jihad-e-Islam, a Sunni Muslim militant group blamed for the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl.
Police said the attack could be retaliation for the killing of Farooqi.
Farooqi's accomplices may be giving "a message that his network is still alive and operative", said Fayyaz Leghari, a senior police official in southern port city of Karachi.
Fanatics from Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority and Shiite minority, most of whom co-habit peacefully, have been killing each other since the 1980s. The conflict has so far cost more than 4,000 lives.
Pakistani officials say Osama bin Laden's Sunni fundamentalist Al-Qaeda network has been increasingly linking up with local Pakistani groups to launch terrorist attacks and fuel the sectarian conflict with the Shiite community.
The hardline and banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was blamed for two bomb attacks on Shiite mosques in the southern port of Karachi in May and June which left 45 people dead.
The latest bombing also comes as the Pakistani security forces are locked in a fierce battle against Al-Qaeda which has seen a number of important arrests since July.
The most notable were Pakistani computer expert Naeem Noor Khan and Tanzanian Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, who has been indicted by a US court for his role in the twin bombing of American embassies in East Africa in 1998.
Musharraf, who threw his support behind the US "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks, said this month he was making significant inroads into breaking the Al-Qaeda network and that more than 600 Al-Qaeda suspects had been detained.