World | Pakistan
Blast in mosque kills one, wounds several others in northwest
Police said a bomb blast killed one person and wounded several others in a mosque yesterday, in a region of northwest Pakistan plagued by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:27 November 22, 2008
Peshawar: Police said a bomb blast killed one person and wounded several others in a mosque yesterday, in a region of northwest Pakistan plagued by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
The bomber targeted a mosque in a Sunni neighbourhood of Hangu, a town in North West Frontier Province that has suffered several attacks before.
Hangu district borders the Kurram tribal region where around 200 people were killed in clashes between Sunnis and Shiites earlier this year.
On Friday a bomb killed 10 people and wounded 40 at a funeral for a Shiite Muslim in Dera Ismail Khan. The funeral was for a man gunned down on Thursday. On the morning of the funeral gunmen killed a Shiite cleric.
Sectarian violence between militant groups has haunted Dera Ismail Khan, a district bordering the South Waziristan tribal region, where support runs deep for the Taliban and Al Qaida.
Both the Taliban and al Qaida are Sunni, and some of their cohorts, like Laskhar-e-Janghvi are rabidly anti-Shiite.
Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat sectarian violence going back to the 1980s.
The majority of Pakistan's Muslims are Sunni, but around 15 per cent are Shiite.
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