Pakistan's Karachi tense as blast toll rises to 57

KARACHI, Apr 12 (Reuters) The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a Sunni Muslim prayer meeting rose today to 57 in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, where officials said they were on high alert for more violence.

Yesterday's strike by two suspected suicide bombers was the worst ever on Karachi, which has been plagued by sectarian violence and Islamist militant organisations angered by President Pervez Musharraf's support for the US-led war on terrorism.

''The death toll has now risen to 57, while there are also reports that some people are still missing,'' Salahuddin Haider, spokesman of the provincial Sindh government, said.

''Our initial investigations suggest that there were at least two suicide bombers involved in the attack. We have found the body parts, including the heads, of the suspected attackers.'' The attackers struck while some 15,000 worshippers from a Sunni Muslim organisation, Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, had gathered for prayers in a city park at the end of a day that marked the anniversary of Prophet Mohammad's birth.

Among the dead were several locally well-known leaders of Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, which has hundreds of thousands of followers among Pakistan's dominant Barelvi sect of Sunni Muslims, raising fears of a violent backlash.

The city was tense and deserted the morning after, with police and paramilitary troops patrolling roads shorn of public transport and almost all filling stations were closed, covered with thick clothes and barriers to avoid any attack.

Dozens of youth wandered around the bomb site, gaping at the badly damaged stage and the hundreds of shoes left behind by dead, wounded and panicked worshippers. There were two police vans parked at the scene.

WELL-PLANNED AND COORDINATED ATTACK Karachi has been one of the main battlegrounds for sectarian violence between Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority and minority Shi'ite Muslims over the past two decades.

''It was a very well-planned and co-ordinated attack, and apparently it seems that the attackers were very well-trained,'' said Haider, adding that they struck in a way to inflict maximum damage. The Sindh government announced a three-day mourning period, and closed down all educational institutions.

It had also asked the army stationed in the city to be ready to deploy troops at short notice, military sources said.

Government officials said foreign franchises, such as the KFC and McDonald's fast food outlets, had been asked to remain closed as they are often targeted at such times.

At least three filling stations and about a dozen vehicles were torched in overnight violence, and two banks and a motorcycle showroom were also damaged.

The funeral prayers of two of the victims were held after morning prayers, and more were scheduled for later in the day.

No violence was reported during these ceremonies, but the funerals of the Sunni group's leaders were still to be held.

REUTERS KD BS1136