Shi'ite gunned down on holy day in NW Pakistan

Tank (Pakistan), Mar 10: Gunmen on a motorcycle killed an active member of the Shi'ite community in northwestern Pakistan today, as the minority Muslim sect commemorated one of the holiest days in its calendar, police said.

There have been four sectarian killing since Thursday in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, 270 km (168 miles) southwest of Islamabad.

Three of the victims have been Shi'ites, while the fourth was a member of a Sunni Muslim militant group.

Shi'ite Muslims in Sunni-dominated Pakistan commemorate Chelum, or Arbain, a religious ceremony which began yesterday and continued today. It marks the end of a 40-day period of mourning for the Prophet Mohammad's grandson who died in AD 680.

Pakistan is in the midst of a security scare after a wave of suicide bombings as Sunni militant groups sympathetic to al Qaeda and the Taliban and enraged by President Pervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States in a global war on terrorism are seeking to destabilise his government.

The latest victim, Safdar Hussain Shah, was a well-known member of the local Shi'ite congregation in Dera Ismail Khan, but was not known to have links with any militant organisation.

''Shah was buying milk at a shop when he was killed in an attack that also wounded the milkmen,'' said a senior police official, who asked not to be identified.

Thousands have been killed in tit-for-tat violence carried out by Sunni and Shi'ite militant groups since the 1980s, although the communities largely live at peace with each other.

During last year's Moharram, Shi'ite's holiest month, a suicide bomber killed at least 40 people in an attack on a Shi'ite mourning procession in the town of Hangu in North West Frontier Province.

Reuters