'Deadly blast in a Pakistan funeral'

{image-Dera Ismail Khan_21112008.jpg news.oneindia.in}Dera Ismail Khan (Pakistan), Nov 21: A bomb attack killed at least 10 people and wounded 40 at the funeral for a Shi'ite Muslim on Friday Nov 21 in the northwest Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan.

The attack sparked an outbreak of shooting around the hospital where the dead and wounded were brought, and police fired tear gas in an attempt to restore order, an Express TV report quoted journalists at the scene, as saying. NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying that 10 people were killed and up to 30 wounded, though a doctor at the main government hospital put the number of wounded at 40.

Witnesses gave conflicting accounts on whether the blast was caused by a suicide bomber or a device planted on the funeral procession's route.

The majority of Pakistan's Muslims are Sunni, but around 15 percent of the 170 million nation are Shi'ite. Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat sectarian violence going back to the 1980s, and earlier this year around 200 people were killed in fighting between Sunni and Shi'ites in the Kurram tribal region.

ANI