At least 44 people were killed when suspected Sunni Muslim extremists attacked Shi'ites with automatic rifles and grenades in Pakistan Tuesday as the minority sect marked one of its holiest days.
Hospital sources said more than 150 people were wounded in the attack in the southwestern city of Quetta, which coincided with bomb blasts that killed at least 143 people in Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala and in Baghdad.
Quetta's military hospital had 25 dead and at least 115 wounded, 20 of them in serious condition, a doctor there said.
A doctor at the Civil Hospital said it had received 19 bodies, including those of two attackers, and 41 wounded, seven of them in serious condition, including one suspected attacker.
"Most of the casualties were from gunfire, explosions and stampede," he said.
The attackers struck on the day on which Shi'ites hold processions to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad and one of the most important figures in Shi'ite history.
The attack on a Shi'ite procession in the center of Quetta was the worst outbreak of sectarian violence in Pakistan since a suicide attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the same city killed more than 57 people in July.
"Terrorists started firing from a balcony on participants in the procession," and armed men from the Shi'ite Hazara community fired back, police Deputy Inspector General Riaz Khan told Reuters. Another police officer said the attackers had also thrown hand grenades.
ATTACKERS KILLED THEMSELVES
"When the terrorists saw themselves surrounded, at least two of them blew themselves up," Khan said. "I saw their bodies dangling from the balcony over the electricity wires."
Witnesses said the attackers' guns were painted with the name of the outlawed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has carried out many sectarian attacks in the past.
"We suspect this is the work of the usual suspects like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, but it's not clear what their objective was," Shi'ite leader Abdul Jalil Naqvi said.
Shi'ites immediately went on the rampage in Quetta, burning more than 100 shops. Troops were sent in to restore order and imposed a curfew as a huge plume of smoke rose from a main market.
A witness in Quetta saw many Shi'ites rioting outside his house. "They have burned a hotel and now the army is in the area," he said.
Interior Ministry Secretary Tasneem Noorani said some suspects had been arrested, but would not give details.
Hundreds of people have died in violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Pakistan in recent years.