From Reuters, with thanks to Twostellas:
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 18 people in a mosque packed with worshippers and wounded more than 40 during Friday prayers in the eastern Pakistani city of Sialkot, police said.
More than 1,000 worshippers from Pakistan’s Shi’ite Muslim minority were in the mosque, police said.
“It was a suicide attack,” Nisar Ahmed Saroya, district police officer for Sialkot, told Reuters. “It was a massive explosion which was heard several miles around.
“Fourteen people were killed on the spot and four died at hospital,” Saroya said….
No group has taken responsibility for the blast,
However, Sunni Muslim extremists have been blamed for a series of attacks on Shi’ite mosques in the southern port city of Karachi earlier this year.
Some of these Sunni groups have forged close links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network and have been used to launch attacks against Pakistani leaders in retaliation for Islamabad’s support for the U.S.-led war on terror since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.