Attack kills 15 at Pak Shia mosque

A suicide attack yesterday killed 15 people and wounded more than 25 others at a Shia Muslim mosque and religious seminary on the edge of Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar, officials said.
The bomber struck in the largely Shia area of Gulshan Colony on the outskirts of the city, which abuts Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked strongholds in the northwestern tribal belt on the Afghan border.
"It was a suicide attack in which 15 people were killed and more than 25 others were wounded," senior police official Shafi Ullah told AFP at the scene.
The force of the blast punched holes in the walls and roof of the prayer hall, the floor of which was littered with bloodied pieces of human flesh, dead bodies, Islamic books and prayer caps, an AFP reporter said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but attacks waged by Sunni Muslim extremists against Pakistan's minority Shia community are on the rise.
In Pakistan's business capital of Karachi, gunmen shot dead a provincial lawmaker, his son and a passer-by outside a mosque.
Sajid Qureshi, a member of the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), in his early 50s, and his 25-year-old son were targeted after Friday prayers in the congested Nazim Abad neighbourhood.