Pakistani police say the leader of a banned Sunni Muslim militant group was shot dead Monday during an attack in the south.
Officials say gunmen killed Ali Sher Haideri and one of his companions
as they were driving in Sindh province, northeast of Karachi. One of
the attackers was also killed when Haideri's guards returned fire.
The slain leader headed Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Sunni extremist group blamed for attacks against Pakistan's minority Shi'ites.
Police said Haideri's killing appeared to be related to a personal
dispute - not sectarian violence. But that did not stop sectarian
rioting from erupting afterward. Police in Karachi say angry mobs
burned a bus and another vehicle.
In a separate incident Monday, a bomb planted in a truck killed at
least six people at a fuel station in the northwestern town of
Charsada, near Peshawar.
Police say the bomb was hidden in a package marked "medicine" that was
given to the vehicle's driver to deliver to a nearby village. The
Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Officials say two women and three children were among the dead.
Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba in 2002 after joining the U.S.-led fight
against terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the
United States.
The U.S. State Department has labeled the group a terrorist organization.