Two bombs exploded at a gathering of Sunni Muslim radicals in the central Pakistan city of Multan before dawn on Thursday, killing at least 39 people and injuring about 100 others, officials said.
Police immediately suspected a sectarian attack. The bombing comes less than a week after a suicide attack left 31 dead at a Shi’ite mosque in an eastern city.
About 3 000 people had gathered in a residential area of Multan to mark the anniversary of the death of the leader of the outlawed Sunni radical group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, killed in an attack last year.
A car bomb exploded near the venue as people were starting to disperse after the overnight meeting, and two minutes later a second bomb attached to a motorcycle went off, deputy city police chief Arshad Hameed said.
He said that at least 36 people were killed.
”It seems to be an act of sectarian terrorism, but we are still investigating,” he said.
Officials at the Nishtar government hospital said at least 39 people were killed and more than 100 people were wounded, about 50 seriously. Some 50 others were treated for minor injuries and later discharged. Other people had been taken to other clinics.
Pools of blood and shoes of the victims were scattered at the scene, near the charred remains of the car.
Jamil Usmani (26) who had been standing in a nearby parking lot with friends, said a stampede after the bombing caused many injuries.
”The explosion numbed our ears, we saw people falling on each other, everybody was crying, everybody was running,” he said. ”Many people were injured in the stampede, we started picking them up and asked passing cars for help.”
Talat Mahmood Tariq, police chief for Multan region, said the car bomb, estimated to weigh about seven kilograms, was set off by remote control and most injuries were caused by flying metal from the vehicle.
It did not appear to be a suicide attack because no body parts were found inside the car, Multan police chief Sikander Hayyat told the private Geo television network.
Witnesses said about 2 000 angry Sunnis gathered outside the Nishtar hospital after the bombings, shouting ”Shi’ites are infidels!”
Police said they were stepping up security in the city, which has suffered sectarian violence in the past.
Sunni Muslims make up about 80% of the 150-million people in Pakistan, and most of the rest are Shi’ites. The vast majority of both sects live in harmony but radical elements on both sides carry out attacks.
”We condemn this terrorist attack. This is tragic,” Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said in the capital Islamabad.
”The government will continue its mission against terrorism.”
The bombings happened around 4.40am as the gathering was dispersing after prayers for the soul of Sipah-e-Sahaba leader Maulana Azam Tariq, who was gunned down on the outskirts of Islamabad last year — an attack blamed on Shi’ite Muslim militants.
A leader of the group blamed Thursday’s bombings on radical Shi’ite Muslims.
”This is the worst kind of terrorism, and everybody knows who is behind it,” said Ahmad Ludhianvi, the head of Sipah-e-Sahaba.
He said that about 3 000 people were at the gathering, held overnight in an open area in Multan’s Rashidabad neighborhood. The vehicles that exploded were parked nearby, he said.
”As we were coming out there was an explosion and set the car on fire,” said Ayub Rana, a witness who had been leaving the gathering.
”Then there was another another explosion in the motorcycle.”
From his hospital bed, Mohammed Nawaz (23) said he was knocked to the ground by a blast, and saw the burning wreck of the car and a nearby electricity transformer on fire. His head and one hand were bandaged.
Pakistan, a key ally in the United States-led war on terrorism, has suffered a spate of terrorist attacks in recent years, and has a history of sectarian violence.
Thursday’s blasts came six days after a suicide attacker detonated a bomb inside a crowded Shi’ite mosque in the eastern city of Sialkot during Friday prayers, killing 31 people and injuring more than 50.
The attack also came hours after the burial of an alleged top al-Qaeda operative and Sunni Muslim militant, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, at a village in eastern Punjab province.
Farooqi was killed in a shootout with security forces on September 26 in southern Pakistan. He was a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a breakaway militant faction of Sipah-e-Sahaba, and had been accused in attacks on Shi’ites, and in the 2002 kidnapping and beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl. – Sapa-AP