Pakistan on high alert after car bomb massacre

MULTAN, Pakistan, Oct 8 (AFP) - Pakistan security forces were on high alert Friday with troops deployed to the city of Multan after a car bomb killed 41 people and wounded more than 100 in the latest attack blamed on sectarian tensions.
The pre-dawn blast on Thursday ripped through a rally of 2,000 people from an outlawed Sunni Muslim group, Millat-e-Islamia, who were marking the anniversary of the assassination of their leader Azam Tariq.
"The government has directed the entire security apparatus to remain on a high state of alert because of the threat posed by elements trying to destablise the country through acts of terrorism," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told reporters late Thursday.
"The federal government has decided to advise the provincial governments to impose bans on processions, religious gatherings and congregation until further orders, except for gatherings for prayers inside mosques," he said after a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
The attack in Multan came six days after 30 worshippers from the rival Shiite minority were killed by a suicide bomber as they prayed in the eastern city of Sialkot.
The latest attacks raise to 165 the number of people killed in six sectarian assaults this year, one of the highest levels in two decades of bloodletting.
Thursday's explosion triggered a stampede through Multan, an ancient shrine-dotted city on the southern Punjab plains surrounded by cotton and sugarcane fields.
The main Rasheedabad Square was littered with body parts, turbans and bloodstains, witnesses said.
"It was like hell, people were torn to pieces, I saw severed limbs lying in pools of blood all around the place," a survivor, Liquat Ali, said.
No one has claimed responsibility but Sunni leaders blamed Shiite extremists.
"This attack is carried out by Shiites," Millat-e-Islamia leader Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi told AFP.
But Shiite leader Allama Syed Taqi Naqvi denied any hand in the blasts. "It is a terrorist act. No Shiite was involved. Those killed were our brothers because they were Muslims."
Investigators said the bomb was in a car parked beneath an electric transformer at the exit from the venue.
"The vehicle was thrown 12 feet (3.6 metres) into the air and the electricity transformer also burst under the impact," a senior police investigator told AFP.
"It was a high intensity (car) bomb which carried seven to eight kilogrammes (around 16 pounds) of explosives," city police chief Sikandar Hayat told AFP. It was set off by remote control or a timer.
Information Minister Sheikh Rashid described the attack as an act of terrorism by "enemies of Pakistan and Islam who have no religion."
"We are fighting worst form of terrorism and we are determined to wipe out this menace," Rashid told AFP.
The attack also drew strong condemnation from the United Nations and the United States.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reiterated that "all terrorist acts are utterly unacceptable, and expresses his serious concern about the dangers of sectarian violence," a statement from his spokesman said.
A US State Department spokesman said, "Attacking mourners during a condolence ceremony is a particularly despicable and cowardly act."
Millat-e-Islamia's Ludhianvi called a mourning period for Thursday and Friday.
Pakistan's Sunni majority and Shiite minority for the most part live together peacefully but militants from each sect have mounted bitter tit-for-tat attacks on each other since the 1980s. The conflict has so far cost more than 4,000 lives.