Sunni outfit leader shot dead in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: The leader of a banned Sunni militant outfit was shot dead during an attack in southern Pakistan Monday, police said.

Allamma Ali Sher Haideri was killed along with one of his associates in the shooting at Pir Jo Goth village in southern Sindh province, senior police official Pir Muhammed Shah told AFP. He said the attacker was also killed when Haideri's guards returned fire and that the situation in the area was tense after the killings. Several other of Haideri's men were also wounded in the incident. Haideri led the Sapah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a Sunni extremist outfit blamed for a string of sectarian attacks across Pakistan against minority Shiites.

Shah said he suspected a personal grudge as the motive in the killing and said that the attacker had been identified.

Shiites account for about 20 percent of Pakistan's mostly Sunni Muslim population of 160 million.

More than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the late 1980s.

Multan, Monday, AFP