Suicide bomber kills at least 30 amid Shiite observances in Karachi, Pakistan

LAHORE, PAKISTAN -- A day of religious gatherings by Shiite Muslims across Pakistan was violently disrupted Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid thousands of marchers in the southern port city of Karachi, leaving at least 30 dead and 60 injured.

The bombing was the fourth to occur in Pakistan during the final, climactic days of Muharram. The 40-day religious mourning period includes frenzied self-flagellations to protest the death of the third Shiite imam, Hussein, who was killed in battle more than 1,300 years ago. Hussein was a grandson of the prophet Muhammad.

The attack in Karachi occurred despite extraordinary security measures taken in urban Shiite centers across the country amid fears of sectarian violence by radical Sunni Muslim groups. Tens of thousands of police guarded processions and shrines, known as imambargahs, in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi.

The Karachi attack followed by a day an explosion near a procession in the small Kashmiri city of Muzaffarabad that killed 11. No serious violence was reported elsewhere Monday, although TV footage showed huge crowds of emotional mourners pouring through the streets of many communities until late at night.

"Pakistan is in a state of war with these terrorists," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said from Islamabad in a brief telephone interview Monday evening. "Such cowardly acts will not deter us from our fight against the scourge of terror, and we will continue with it until their elimination."

Since September, Pakistan has been rocked by a sustained wave of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, which have taken more than 400 lives at markets, mosques, schools and military installations. Officials and most experts attribute the attacks to extremist Sunni groups including the Taliban, which the army is battling in the tribal region in the country's northwest.

Some Sunni groups seek to provoke sectarian tensions and increase instability in this volatile Muslim nation of 170 million people, of which about 20 percent are Shiites. Such groups have been officially banned, but experts say some continue to operate under new names or in collaboration with groups that seek to establish what they describe as a pure Islamic state.

Officials said the explosion Monday provoked violent reactions among worshipers in various parts of Karachi, where marchers threw rocks at police and ambulances and set fire to shops. Similar confrontations were reported Sunday when an explosion during another Shiite parade in the city injured 23 people. Police said that blast could have been an accident.

Pakistan has been plunged in recent weeks into a major political crisis that has weakened and distracted the government from the anti-terror war. President Asif Ali Zardari and hundreds of other officials have come under scrutiny in past corruption cases. The president, fighting to keep his job after the end of a legal amnesty, warned Sunday that conspiracies are being hatched against Pakistani democracy, and he vowed to "gouge out the eyes" of the plotters.

In contrast to the disorder in Karachi, a teeming city long known as a cauldron of political, religious and criminal violence, the Muharram gatherings in the eastern city of Lahore on Sunday and Monday were peaceful and orderly. Police erected barricades around each imambargah, and thousands of worshipers stood patiently in long lines to be searched before entering.

Inside the largest imambargah, known as Gameshah, the atmosphere Monday was both festive and funereal, contemplative and frenzied. Families held picnics, browsed in religious stalls and sipped hot milk from huge vats, provided free by Shiite charities. In tiny rooms, women swathed in black gathered to pray and kiss religious tableaux.

But just yards away, chanting crowds formed around groups of young men who beat their chests and whipped their backs with sharp knives on chains, shouting "Ya Hussain." Some were boys as young as 10. They rhythmically goaded themselves into religious hysteria, then collapsed or staggered away in a daze, streaming with blood.

"We do this because it is our duty to remember Imam Hussein and his suffering. If a single needle pricks us, we feel the pain, but from this we feel nothing," declared Mohammed Mushtaq, 22, whose white tunic was drenched with red. "We do it for love of Hussein."

Brulliard reported from Islamabad. Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.