Violence Hits Shiite Muslim Festival

Shiite Muslims' most important holiday was marred by sectarian violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Shiites were marking Ashoura, which mourns the 7th century death of Imam Hussain, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Hussain's death fueled a rivalry between Shiites and Sunni Muslims over who should succeed the prophet.

A suicide bombing ripped through a Shiite Muslim procession Thursday in northwestern Pakistan, sparking riots. At least 27 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in the bombing and the riots that followed, Ghani ur-Rehman, the top district administrator said. He said more than 60 percent of the town bazaar had been burned down in the violence that following the bombing.

Sectarian attacks have often marred the annual rite in Pakistan, and security was already tight across the country. Two years ago, a suicide attack on a Shiite procession by Sunni militants in the southwestern city of Quetta left 44 dead.

An Associated Press reporter who entered Hangu by a different route saw the bazaar was mostly destroyed and thick smoke was rising above the gutted shops. Some shops were still burning. Police and army troops with armored personnel carriers were deployed around the bazaar and patrolled the streets. There was an occasional sound of gunfire, but it wasn't clear who was firing.

Army troops took control of northwestern Pakistan and a curfew was imposed as the Shiites vented their anger by burning shops and cars in Hangu, about 125 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad, district police chief Ayub Khan said. In Islamabad, Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said he could confirm only 12 deaths.

Police mounted road blocks on the road to Hangu. At Ustarzai, a town about 15 miles away, police said they had orders to let no one pass, and even stopped three ambulances. Two trucks of police from an anti-terrorist squad were able to drive by.

In Afghanistan, hundreds of Shiite Muslims and Sunnis clashed in a western Afghan city Thursday during the Islamic festival, killing five people and injuring 51, officials and witnesses said.

Islamic extremists are suspected of inciting the violence, said Ismatullah Mohammed, a senior police officer. The fighting comes after three days of deadly rioting targeted at foreigners over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad. Those riots left 11 dead.

Thursday's fighting started after about 300 Sunnis threw stones at a Shiite mosque. Such an attack is rare in Afghanistan, where there has been little tension between the two sects.

The Shiites responded, attacking Sunnis in a camp for displaced people, before the violence spread across the city with both sides throwing grenades at each other, burning about a dozen cars and two mosques, he said.

Police fired into the air to try to separate the two sides, but failed, said local resident Abdul Nafai.

The deputy army commander in Herat, Faizil Ahmad Sayar, said at least five people had been killed. A doctor at Herat Hospital, said he was treating 51 wounded.

Mohammed said hundreds of young men were believed to be coming into Herat from surrounding towns and villages to join the fighting and security forces have been ordered to block the main roads.

Thousands of other soldiers and police have fanned out across the city, Sayar said.

Sunnis make up about 80 percent of Afghanistan's 28 million population, Shiites 20 percent. Apart from a small clash in the capital Kabul during Ashoura last year, there has been little fighting between the two sects.

Taliban rebels, who are Sunnis, have directed their campaign of violence at the country's U.S.-backed government and foreign forces, and not the Shiites.