(Updates toll, adds comment) By Kamran Haider PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 17 (Reuters) - A teenaged suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded Shi'ite Muslim prayer hall in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, killing at least nine people and wounding 25, a government official said. Pakistan's minority Shi'ites are observing a mourning period for the anniversary of the death of Iman Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammad, when sectarian violence often flares. "It could be a conspiracy to spread religious hatred, to pit Muslim against Muslim," said Ghulam Ali, a district government chief in the northwestern city. He said authorities had recovered 10 bodies, some badly mutilated, one of which was apparently that of the bomber, who an Interior Ministry spokesman said was about 16 years old. Pakistan saw a surge of religious violence in the 1980s with the emergence of militant groups, most of them Sunni Muslim, funded by the United States and Saudi Arabia to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan and Shi'ite radical groups after the 1979 Islamic revolution in majority Shi'ite Iran. While ordinary Sunni and Shi'ite Pakistanis live together peacefully, radicals from the two sects have inflicted a bloody toll in tit-for-tat assassinations and bomb attacks since then. The 40-day Shi'ite mourning period has become a lightning rod for sectarian violence. One witness said he heard gunshots just before the blast. "People are crying and shouting. It's chaos," said Ali Haider, who was outside the hall when the attack took place. The government had stepped up security during the commemoration, which reaches a climax this weekend with processions by Shi'ites across the country. Pakistani shares fell more than 1 percent on Thursday as cautious investors sold on security concerns ahead of the weekend processions. HUNT FOR SOLDIERS Meanwhile, security forces were searching for 15 paramilitary soldiers who went missing when hundreds of militants stormed a fort in the northwest of the country on Wednesday, a military spokesman said. Militants have been blamed for a string of attacks on security forces in recent months, compounding a sense of crisis in the nuclear-armed country as President Pervez Musharraf has struggled to hold power in the face of protests from opponents. About 200 militants attacked the Sara Rogha fort in South Waziristan on the Afghan border. They captured it after blowing up one of its walls, the military said. The military initially said 40 militants and seven soldiers were killed and 20 soldiers were missing, but five of the missing men were later reported to have reached villages in the area, said military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas. "Fifteen are still missing," Abbas said. "They are looking for the men, a search operation is on." Security forces have been battling al Qaeda-linked militants in South Waziristan for several years. A spokesman for the militants said they had killed 16 troops and captured 12 in the attack. He said two of his men were killed. Abbas said there was no confirmation of the militants' claim that they had captured the 12. The militants had abandoned the fort and security forces were preparing to retake control of it, Abbas said. The area where the fort is located is a stronghold of al Qaeda-linked militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, who the government said was behind the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27. The government says the militants are intent on destabilising the country in the run-up to a Feb. 18 election that is meant to complete a transition to civilian rule. The parliamentary elections were due to be held on Jan. 8 but were postponed after Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack. (Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Robert Birsel; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
A grieved relative sits next to the body of a bombing victim a day after the incident in Karachi January 15, 2008. At least eight people were killed on Monday when ...
