At least 45 Pakistan Shi'ites killed

By Rizwan Saeed

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - At least 44 people have been killed when suspected Sunni Muslim radicals attacked rival Shi'ites with
automatic rifles and grenades in Pakistan as the minority sect marked one of its holiest days.

Hospital sources said more than 150 people were wounded in the suicide attack on Tuesday in the southwestern city of Quetta, which
coincided with bomb blasts that killed at least 143 people in Iraq's holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala and capital Baghdad.

Quetta's military hospital had 25 dead and at least 115 wounded, 20 of them in serious condition, a doctor there said.

A doctor at the Civil Hospital said it had received 19 bodies, including those of two attackers, and 41 wounded, seven of them in serious
condition including one suspected attacker.

"Most of the casualties were from gunfire, explosions and stampede," he said.

The attackers struck on the day on which Shi'ites hold processions to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet
Mohammad and one of the most important figures in Shi'ite history.

In a separate incident in Pakistan, the local leader of an outlawed Shi'ite group was shot dead and more than 30 Shi'ites were wounded in a
clash with majority Sunnis, police said.

The attack on a Shi'ite procession in the centre of Quetta was the worst outbreak of sectarian violence in Pakistan since a suicide attack on
a Shi'ite mosque in the same city killed more than 57 people in July.

"Terrorists started firing from a balcony on participants in the procession," and armed men from the Shi'ite Hazara community fired back,
police deputy inspector general Riaz Khan told Reuters. Another police officer said the attackers had also thrown hand grenades.

ATTACKERS KILLED THEMSELVES

"When the terrorists saw themselves surrounded, at least two of them blew themselves up," Khan said. "I saw their bodies dangling from the
balcony over the electricity wires."

Witnesses said the attackers' guns were painted with the name of the outlawed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has carried out many
sectarian attacks in the past.

"We suspect this is the work of the usual suspects like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, but it's not clear what their objective was," Shi'ite leader Abdul
Jalil Naqvi told Reuters.

Shi'ites immediately went on the rampage in Quetta, burning more than 100 shops. Troops were sent in to restore order and imposed a
curfew as a huge plume of smoke rose from a main market. "Do not come out, a curfew has been imposed," police warned residents over
loudspeakers.

A witness in Quetta saw many Shi'ites rioting just outside his house. "They have burnt a hotel and now the army is in the area," he said.

Interior Ministry Secretary Tasneem Noorani said some suspects had been arrested but would not give details.

The Shi'ite mourning period of Muharram has been marked in the past by violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims and security has
been tight throughout Pakistan ahead of Tuesday's anniversary of the martyrdom of Hussein.

Hundreds of people have died in violence between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Pakistan in recent years.