100 Dead. 150 Injured As Blast Rips Through Sufi Shrine In Karachi

Karachi:  At least 100 people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a crowded Sufi shrine in southern Pakistan on Thursday, a police official said.

Senior police officer Shabbir Sethar told newsmen from a local hospital that the death toll was likely to rise.

"At least 72 are dead and over 150 have been injured," Sethar said by telephone.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif immediately condemned the attack on Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in the town of Sehwan in Sindh province.

A suicide bomber entered the shrine as crowds massed on Thursday, a statement from the Sindh police spokesman said.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing in southern Pakistan, the group's affiliated news agency AMAQ reported.

Several other attacks this week, including a bomb that killed 13 people in the eastern city of Lahore, were claimed by the Pakistani Taliban's Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction.

Sharif in his statement decried the attack on the Sufi religious minority and vowed to fight Islamist terrorists who target the government and anyone who does not adhere to their strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.

"The past few days have been hard, and my heart is with the victims," Sharif said.

"But we can't let these events divide us, or scare us. We must stand united in this struggle for the Pakistani identity, and universal humanity."