Suicide attack on Ashora procession;

death toll in the suicide blast yesterday rose to 40 and
numerous injured
GBE Monitor
KARACHI, Dec.29: A suicide bomber on Monday, december 28, targeted Pakistan's
largest procession of Shiite Muslims on their holiest day, killing at least40 people and wounding dozens more in defiance of a major security crackdown. The blast sparked riots in Karachi, the financial capital, where angry mourners went on the rampage, throwing stones at ambulances, torching cars and shops and firing bullets into the air, sparking appeals for calm. According to hospital sources, at least 38 bodies have been brought to civil Hospital; while two bodies were taken to Jinnah Hospital.The several injured were shifted to private hospitals. Provincial government had deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces, fearing militant attacks on Ashura processions. “The blast was so huge that I felt my hearing had gone, but then I started hearing cries of injured people and saw pieces of human flesh and blood on the road,” said Abbas Ali, 35, one of the mourners thrown to the ground. Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed Tehreek-e-Taliban, against which the military has been waging a major operation in near the Afghan border, and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, another of Pakistan's most feared Islamist networks. “At least 30 people have been killed so far in the suicide attack and 63 others have been injured,” provincial health minister Saghir Ahmed told AFP.
"We have declared emergency at all hospitals in Karachi and doctors are making every
effort to save the injured. According to an AFP correspondent the situation is very grim in the city. Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road, where the attack happened, was ablaze with burning cars and motorcycles, and covered in debris from buildings attacked by rioters. “We are using our maximum resources available to put out the fire which is still raging in the markets,” said city mayor Mustafa Kamal. Karachi has escaped most of the bomb attacks that have battered the northwest and other major cities. Monday's attack was the deadliest in Karachi since a suicide bomber targeted the homecoming of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who was assassinated two months later — killing at least 139 people in October 2007. It was the third attack on Ashura commemorations in Pakistan this year. A suicide attack at a Shiite mosque in
Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Sunday killed seven people. Explosives wounded
17 people in Karachi on the same day. Police said two suspects were arrested at the
bomb site, and said a sketch of the bomber would be issued based on the discovery of
his severed head.
A spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers said one of their members died as he pinned down the suicide bomber, claiming that otherwise the blast would have inflicted
far more casualties.