Bomber Kills 25 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — At least 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded Thursday when a suicide bomber attacked a Shiite Muslim procession in northwest Pakistan, officials and hospital sources said.

In neighboring Afghanistan, a rare outbreak of violence between the country’s minority Shiites and Sunni Muslims left at least five dead and 27 wounded.

The clashes erupted in the western Afghan city of Herat when Sunnis accused Shiites of tearing up a sacred flag. Fighting spread across the city and raged for several hours as rioters threw grenades and fired rifles, local police said.

The Herat violence was not linked to protests over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, first printed last year in a Danish newspaper. At least 11 Afghans died in those demonstrations during the past week.

Officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan said extremists were trying to stir up sectarian violence.

In the town of Hangu, in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, a suicide bomber struck as worshipers were commemorating Ashura, one of the most somber days in the Shiite calendar. It marks the day in 680 when Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Hussein, was martyred during a battle in the city of Karbala in what is now Iraq.

Akram Khan Durrani, chief minister of the Pakistani province, said Thursday’s attack was carried out by a suicide bomber who struck as the religious procession began in Hangu’s main bazaar. Durrani ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident.

“We received 25 badly mutilated bodies, and the number of casualties can increase,” said a doctor reached by phone in Hangu. He asked not to be identified because of tensions in the town.

He said that about 60 people were injured, 17 of them seriously, in the town about 80 miles southwest of Peshawar. The seriously injured were airlifted by helicopter to a military hospital in the town of Kohat.

Sayed Hussain Ali Shah, a political leader in Hangu, called the attack a deliberate act of terrorism rather than a spontaneous burst of sectarian violence.

After the suicide blast, four smaller explosions struck the main bazaar, after which thousands of angry rioters attacked markets and banks and set dozens of shops on fire, Shah said. The violence escalated into a gun battle between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, witnesses said.

“Thick smoke is still hanging over the town,” said Saboor Khan, a resident. He said sporadic shootings in the town and its suburbs were continuing Thursday evening.

Hangu Mayor Ghani Rehman said a curfew had been imposed after rioters caused widespread damage to government buildings and private property.

Authorities deployed Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary troops to control lawlessness in the area, which suffered severe sectarian clashes in 1998 and 2001. Security was also tightened in Peshawar and the province’s other cities, officials said.

Special correspondent Ali reported from Peshawar and Times staff writer Watson from Kabul, Afghanistan.