Pakistan's government yesterday announced a judicial inquiry into a suicide attack on Shiite Muslim worshippers that triggered sectarian clashes, leaving 43 people dead and causing carnage in this southwestern city.
Troops patrolled the deserted, riot-hit streets of Quetta, a day after three armed men sprayed gunfire and lobbed grenades at a religious procession, before blowing themselves up. More than 160 other people were wounded.
President General Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S.-ally in the war on terrorism - who himself faced two assassination attempts by suspected Islamic militants in December - vowed to see the culprits arrested, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad told reporters.
Musharraf also resolved to rid Pakistan of terrorism, extremism and sectarianism.
Authorities have called the Quetta attack - occurring less than two hours after coordinated blasts at Shiite shrines in Iraq killed at least 143 people there - an attempt to destabilize Pakistan.
No group has claimed responsibility for the assault, one of the deadliest in years of sectarian violence in the country. Two of the attackers were among the dead; the third was in critical condition. Police would not reveal the identity of the men.
Enraged Shiites blamed the massacre on extremist Sunni Muslim groups, and targeted a Sunni mosque and shops in retaliatory rioting late Tuesday.
The bloodshed came on Ashoura, a day when Islam's Shiite faithful mark the death of a revered 7th-century leader by marching in black and lashing themselves in penitence.
In Pakistan, the emotional and highly visible annual rites often spark violence between the Sunni Muslim majority and Shiite minority.
A curfew declared immediately after the massacre remained in place across this southwestern city of 1.2 million. Army trucks mounted with machine-guns patrolled the empty roads, and sharpshooters were positioned on rooftops.
Firefighters battled late into Tuesday night to extinguish fires set by rioters at a market near a Shiite mosque. Nearly 60 shops stood gutted, goods scattered outside. A cinema and a bank were also ravaged in overnight arson attacks.
The death toll rose by one to 43 yesterday, according to officials at two hospitals in Quetta. A policeman at the Civil Hospital, who declined to be named, said soldiers found the body of a security guard who died when the bank was set on fire.
Sikandar Abbas Gilani, spokesman for a Shiite organization, the Shia Ulema Council, yesterday accused Pakistan's security institutions of "criminal negligence" for failing to prevent the attack and said it proved the government was inept.
"We demand those who made tall claims of foolproof security in the government resign. They have no moral right to remain in government. This includes the president and interior minister," Gilani said.
Tasneem Noorani, the top bureaucrat at the Interior Ministry, said a judicial inquiry would be held into the killings.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said investigators were looking into whether the attacks in Iraq and Pakistan were coordinated - which they couldn't rule out - but said there wasn't any evidence of that so far.
Quetta Mayor Abdul Rahim Kakar, who was near the procession when Tuesday's attack happened, said the slaughter opened when three men sprayed gunfire and hurled grenades into the process of Shiite Muslim faithful.
Walking among the survivors with more explosives lashed to their bodies, the men blew themselves up as police moved in, Kakar said.
Shiite Muslims and unidentified rivals exchanged gunfire at least once in the immediate aftermath, said Riaz Khan, Quetta's police chief.
Quetta, with a substantial Shiite Muslim minority at odds with radical Islamic groups that share power in the city's Baluchistan province, is a frequent scene of Shiite-Sunni clashes. In July, attackers armed with machine guns and grenades stormed a Shiite mosque in Quetta, killing 50 people praying inside.
