Police Fire at Mobs of Pakistani Protesters; 2 Die, 18 Wounded

Police fired at mobs of demonstrators in a seventh day of unrest in Karachi on Saturday, killing two people and wounding 16, witnesses and hospital sources said.

In the federally administered tribal region of the North West Frontier Province along the Afghan border, army troops were called into the town of Parachinar to put down clashes between rival Shia and Sunni Muslim tribes.

Officials, reached by telephone in Parachinar, said two people were killed and 10 were wounded in two days of fighting. But hospital sources said 10 people had been killed when the tribes--armed with rocket launchers and machine guns--clashed in four villages.

In the capital of the North West Frontier Province, Peshawar, a small bomb exploded outside the compound wall of the International Committee of the Red Cross Hospital. There were no injuries, but it was the first time an ICRC facility for Afghan war wounded had been attacked.

Official sources said they suspected agents of the Soviet-backed Afghan regime were responsible for the blast in retaliation for Pakistan’s support of Muslim insurgents battling Soviet occupation troops.

In Karachi, clashes between police and anti-government demonstrators have killed 17 people in the past week, including several police officers.