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Pakistan bombing kills 25 at Shiite procession
A suicide bombing targeting a Shiite Muslim procession in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi killed 25 people and wounded dozens more Monday, as Shiites across the country marked the key holy day of Ashoura.
Violence broke out in the aftermath of the bombing, with shots fired into the air and outraged Shiites hurling stones at security forces who had been guarding the march for their failure to prevent it.
The bombing was the latest in a wave of violence to hit Pakistan since the army started taking on Islamist militants allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban, with terrorist strikes killing 500 people since October.
Karachi has largely been spared the Taliban-linked violence that has struck much of the rest of the country. But the city has been the scene of frequent sectarian, ethnic and political violence.
Extremists from the majority Sunni community regard Shiites as heretical, and the two groups have long engaged in tit-for-tat killings in Pakistan.