Three suicide bombers struck in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore Wednesday, killing 18 people and wounding 143 during a Shiite mourning procession, police and rescue officials said.
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of Islamist militant attacks over the past three years, which many attribute to Islamabad's alliance with Washington and the US-led war against a resurgent Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The string of blasts took place at the moment of the breaking of fast in the ongoing holy month of Ramadan, and led to an outpouring of fury as mourners tried to torch a nearby police station.
Police fired tear gas shells to force back the surging crowd.
"Eighteen people were killed and 143 others wounded in the three suicide attacks," a senior local administration official, Sajjad Bhutta, told AFP.
"We have collected bodies of all the three bombers," he said, adding they were collecting evidence from the site.
He admitted there may have been a lapse in security.
Top local administration official Khusro Pervez told reporters in Lahore: "The first blast took place immediately after the mourning procession ended, followed by the other two."
The procession was to mark the martyrdom anniversary of Hazarat Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed.
Pervez said the police were trying to secure other areas, as the mourners were currently scattered throughout the area known as Karbala Gamey Shah, where the traditional route of the mourning procession ends.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the attacks and described them as "cowardly acts of terrorism".
"Those elements playing with the lives of innocent people would not escape the law of the land," an official statement quoted him as saying in Islamabad.
It is not the first time Lahore has seen violence directed towards religious groups.
In July, twin suicide attacks on an Islamic shrine in Lahore, capital of Punjab province and a major military, political and cultural hub, killed 43 people.
The two suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds of worshippers at the shrine to Sufi saint Data Ganj Bakhsh.
In May, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two mosques belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect in Lahore, killing at least 82 people.
The United States last year approved a five-year, 7.5 billion-dollar package aimed at reducing the appeal of extremists in the Islamic world's only declared nuclear power by building infrastructure, schools and democratic institutions.
But the Pakistani public remains inflamed by a covert US drone war against Islamist targets in lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border, which Washington considers the global bastion of Al-Qaeda.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the latest attack, which came as the United States added the Pakistani Taliban to a blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations, meaning members face asset freezes and travel bans.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton designated the Tehreek-e-Taliban as a foreign terrorist organisation on August 12, and it was formally added to the list when it was published Wednesday in the Federal Register.
"I conclude that there is a sufficient factual basis to find that the relevant circumstances described in section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act... exist with respect" to the group, she wrote.
"Therefore, I hereby designate the aforementioned organization and its aliases as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to section 219 of the INA," she wrote, according to an email distributed by the State Department.
Pakistan is currently battling devastating flooding that has left a confirmed 1,760 people dead and more than 2,000 injured, but officials warn that millions are at risk from food shortages and disease.
Copyright 2010 AFP South Asian Edition
