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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| 1 dead in Karachi mosque attack |
| 2004-11-04 |
| A gunman killed one worshipper and wounded two clerics when he opened fire inside a mosque in the city of Karachi yesterday. The attack occurred at the Mohammedi Mosque in a low-income neighborhood in the north of the city. Police said it was unclear whether the attack was part of sectarian violence or the result of a personal enmity. City police chief Fayyaz Leghari said the attack was apparently aimed at the deputy prayer leader of the mosque, Sajid Zaman, who was critically wounded. "The gunman fired four to five bullets from a pistol, targeting the deputy prayer leader," he told Reuters. "But a stray bullet killed a worshipper." The prayer leader of the mosque, Mufti Farooq Ahmed Siddiqui, was also wounded in the leg. Leghari said the attack could have been the result of a personal enmity rather than a sectarian rivalry. "Usually automatic weapons are used in terror attacks, but in this case a pistol was used," he said. Police said the gunman escaped with an accomplice who waited outside the mosque with a motorcycle. There were 250 worshippers in the Karachi mosque at the time of the attack. "Someone started shooting during the prayers," said Siddiqui, the prayer leader who was wounded in the leg. "I only heard gunshots on my back ... then the people started running." Security has been stepped up at the places of worship across Pakistan due to fears of more attacks during Ramadan, which ends in mid-November. Analysts believe Al-Qaeda-linked groups have been behind some of the recent violence, aiming to stir up sectarian animosity and destabilize the administration of President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terror. In the southwestern city of Quetta on Monday, security forces arrested two men, one of them an Iraqi suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, as they tried to purchase arms, intelligence officials said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |