WORLD> Asia-Pacific
|
WORLD> Asia-Pacific
|
|
Bomb on passenger truck kills 7 in NW Pakistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-17 21:45
Pakistan also suffers periodic spasms of violence between its Sunni and Shiite Muslim sects. In the southern commercial capital of Karachi on Monday, supporters of banned Sunni sectarian group Sipah-e-Sahaba rioted after its leader, Ali Sher Haideri, was gunned down in his car that morning.
Haideri, said to be in his 50s, was the spiritual leader of Sipah, which has been blamed for attacks against the country's minority Shiites, whom they regard as heretics. The US State Department designated the group a terrorist organization in 2003. Angered at his death, dozens of Sunni youths torched a bus and a van and threw stones at other vehicles, according to Abdul Majid Dasti, a senior police officer in Karachi. He said police lobbed tear gas canisters and dispersed the mob, but protesters later regrouped and set fire to a gas station. Some rioters also fired shots, wounding two people on a nearby bridge. Police arrested four people, Dasti said. Rioting and protests were also reported in Kandh Kot and Khairpur, two other cities in Sindh province, senior police officer Sanaullah Abbasi said, but no major injuries were reported. Police said Haideri was killed over a personal dispute, but retaliatory violence can spring up between Sunnis and Shiites in the wake of such attacks. Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba after the September 11, 2001 attacks as part of efforts to purge the country of extremism, but the group still operates more or less openly. Al-Qaida and the Taliban are also extremist Sunni groups and share Sipah's anti-Shiite stance.
|
