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Bomber kills key Pakistani leader

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 15, 2006

KARACHI, Pakistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the home of a prominent Shiite Muslim cleric Friday, killing the cleric and a bodyguard and triggering a riot in this southern Pakistani city.

Allama Hassan Turabi died of his injuries at a hospital, said Jehangir Mirza, the Sindh province police chief. After the attack, hundreds of his youthful followers set fire to a state-owned gas station and damaged a bank branch and some shops, said local police Chief Tahir Naveed.

Pakistan has been blighted for years by attacks blamed on extremist elements among the Sunni and Shiite sects, targeting places of worship and religious leaders. The attacks often lead to rioting.

Authorities deployed extra police and paramilitary forces in several parts of Karachi ahead of Turabi's funeral late Friday or early today.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body at the gate of Turabi's house as the cleric was getting into a car. Turabi was the leader of a Shiite party, Islamic Tehreek Pakistan, and a provincial chief for United Action Forum, a hard-line opposition religious coalition.

In addition to the rioters, about 300 youths gathered near Turabi's house, weeping and chanting slogans against America and Israel, usual targets of anger in the wake of acts of violence in this Islamic nation.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao vowed to find those responsible. "This is an act of terrorism, but at this stage we cannot say who was behind it," he said.

Allama Sajid Naqvi, deputy chief of the MMA, urged the religious coalition's supporters to remain peaceful. He demanded the government "unmask and arrest" those responsible.

Turabi narrowly escaped an attempt on his life in April, when a bomb exploded near his car in Karachi, an attack that wounded two bodyguards and a passer-by.

Also in April, a suicide bombing at a Sunni gathering at a Karachi park killed 57 people. It was one of the deadliest bombings in Pakistan in recent years and sparked three days of rioting in Karachi by Sunnis protesting the killings.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 00:28:14]