KARACHI, Pakistan, May 27 -- A suicide bomber killed at least 20 people and wounded dozens Friday among mostly Shiite Muslim worshipers at an annual celebration in Islamabad, the capital, officials said.
Witnesses reported seeing the attacker move briskly from the rear to the center of the crowd before the bomb exploded. Police said he had explosives strapped to his body. Thousands of men, women and children were listening to a sermon in a tented compound, just outside a shrine in the capital's main official and diplomatic neighborhood.
Family members comfort each other at hospital in Islamabad where bodies of suicide bombing victims were brought.
(Anjum Naveed -- AP)
|
|
The attack came just one week after a major edict against suicide bombings was approved by 58 senior Muslim scholars from all schools of thought in Pakistan. The scholars declared that suicide attacks were un-Islamic and a "great sin."
"I was listening to the sermon when a deafening sound followed by shrieks stunned me. I went unconscious when a man who had his torso blown up fell on me," said Ale Shabbar, a 32-year-old car salesman said interviewed by news services at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the hospital where most of the dead and wounded were taken. "Why did I live to see all this?"
At least 200 people, most of them Shiites, have been killed in sectarian violence in Pakistan since January 2004. More than 40 people were killed when suicide bombers struck two Shiite mosques in Karachi last year.
"Several times in past years, suicide bombers have targeted Shiite congregations in Pakistan and Iraq," Shahid Wasim, the interior minister, said in a telephone interview. "Today's incident just fits into the pattern."
Suspects arrested in previous terrorism cases in Pakistan have been found to have significant links to organizations with ties to al Qaeda, officials said.
Pakistani officials expressed concern Friday that the suicide bomber penetrated security at the shrine, which is a short drive from the parliament building, the diplomatic enclave and the official residence of the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
"It's terrible news when the president and the prime minister have narrowly escaped three suicide bombings in the past 18 months," said Talat Mahmood, the police chief in Islamabad.
"People controlling strings attached to suicide bombers are roaming in the capital," he said.
