Mosque suicide bombing spirals into riot

ELEVEN people were killed in a night of violence in Karachi when a suicide attack on a mosque blamed on a group linked to al-Qaeda led to a riot that burned to death six at a KFC fast-food outlet.

Angry Shiite Muslims set fire to the restaurant in revenge after five people were killed and 18 wounded in the Monday night suicide bomb blast at a Shiite mosque in Karachi’s middle-class Gulshan-e-Iqbal district, police said yesterday.

The mob torched the KFC outlet minutes after the blast at the mosque, and then ransacked a hospital and two petrol stations, and burned more than a dozen vehicles.

The latest violence came three days after a suicide bombing at a festival in Islamabad killed 19 people, mostly Shiite Muslims - the worst-ever attack in Pakistan’s capital. The country has been a key strategic ally of the United States since the 11 September attacks of 2001.

A crowd of Shiite youths chanting "down with America" tried to set fire to another KFC outlet yesterday during a funeral for a victim of Monday’s attack, but police repelled them with batons. Police also detained about two dozen protesters who threw rocks at cars, shops and police.

Shiite mobs often target symbols of US influence after sectarian attacks as they accuse the government of failing to act to prevent religious violence.

Police said intelligence agents suspect Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni Muslim militant group with ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, had planned the mosque attack.

"The pattern of this attack has many similarities with attacks they have carried out in the recent past," said the district’s police chief, Asif Ajaz Sheikh.

"We are working on several other leads too."

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is one of Pakistan’s most feared underground militant groups.