QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 18 (AFP) - Two Sunni Muslim militants who were planning an attack on rival Shiites blew themselves to bits with a hand grenade after a gunbattle with Pakistani police on Friday, officials said.
Police said the men, who were members of the banned Al-Qaeda-linked group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, killed themselves during a raid on their hideout near a Shiite mosque in the turbulent southwestern city Quetta.
The incident comes ahead of a weekend of parades by Pakistan's minority Shiite community to mark Ashura, a mourning ceremony for the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, which is often hit by sectarian violence.
"When police knocked at their door, they resorted to firing and when besieged they blew themselves up with hand grenades," Quetta police chief Pervez Rafi Bhatti told AFP.
"Their bodies were blown into pieces."
Five hand grenades, two Kalashnikov rifles and hundreds of bullets were recovered from the house, the walls of which had been daubed with anti-Shiite slogans, police said.
"The militants could have attacked Shiite processions in the city today and there is also a possibility they were planning to attack the main Ashura procession" on Sunday, provincial police chief Chaudhry Muhammad Yaqub told a press conference.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi later said in a statement faxed to newspapers that the militants were its members and that it was proud of their acts.
The group vowed it would carry on attacks against Shiites and warned the government not to be happy about killing two of its men.
"Our members were ready to launch suicide attacks and by dying they have provided inspiration to other Lashkar-e-Jhangvi mujahideen and Sunni youth to follow their footsteps," spokesman Commander Zarar said in the message.
More than 4,000 people have been killed in the past decade in sectarian violence in Pakistan blamed on Sunni and Shiite radicals.
Quetta itself has a long history of sectarian bloodshed. Last year 48 Shiites were killed in an attack on an Ashura procession, while 50 people died in a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in 2003.
Police said they raided the house in Quetta after neighbours became suspicious about the activities of the men, who rented the house two weeks ago.
One of the dead was identified as Niaz Muhammad, a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activist.
Meanwhile police in the southern city of Karachi on Friday arrested around 50 suspected members of outlawed Sunni extremist groups, city police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP.
Most were members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The organisation has mounted numerous attacks on Shiites, who make up 20 percent of Pakistan's population, and is also blamed for the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.
Police in Karachi last week said they had arrested four militants including a suspected suicide bomber.
"Those arrested overnight were being interrogated to find out their links with the four suspects and also about any conspiracy to disrupt peace in the city," Jamil said.
Pakistan has massively beefed up security for Ashura -- the 10th day in the Muslim mourning month of Muharram -- and has deployed specially trained anti-Al-Qaeda commandos to guard against possible violence.
02/18/2005 14:14 GMT - AFP