Blast Kills Scores at Mosque in Southern Pakistan - New York Times

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Security officials outside a Shiite mosque that was bombed on Friday in Shikarpur, about 300 miles north of Karachi, Pakistan. Credit Fida Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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KARACHI, Pakistan — An explosion ripped through a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan during weekly prayers on Friday, killing more than 40 people and wounding at least 50 in an apparent suicide bombing, hospital officials said.

The bombing in Shikarpur, about 300 miles north of Karachi, was the country’s worst sectarian attack in months. It offered further proof that extremists are spreading deep into Sindh Province, which had previously escaped the worst of Pakistan’s violence.

Television images from the scene showed bloodied worshipers being carried from the mosque in the city’s Lakhi Dar district. Haji Saleem, a representative of the Edhi Foundation, a nonprofit rescue service, said that at least 57 people had been killed, and more than 100 had been injured.

The attack appeared to have been carried out by a suicide bomber, said Abdul Quddus, a police officer in Shikarpur.

Jundullah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. “Our target was the Shiite community,” Fahad Marwat, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters. “They are our enemies.”

Although sectarian violence has risen across Pakistan in recent years, such attacks have been relatively rare in Sindh, which has a long tradition of tolerance among religious groups.

But that harmony has come under threat with a recent expansion of sectarian groups across the province, which use mosques and seminaries to spread hatred of Shiites. One of the most prominent such groups, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, was banned by the Pakistani government in 2012.

In a statement, former President Asif Ali Zardari, who comes from Sindh Province, said he was “shocked and grieved beyond measure” by the bombing.

While leaders in Sindh openly acknowledge the growing threat of sectarianism, they seem helpless to stop its expansion, drawing angry criticism from Shiite groups.

“It seems like the killing of Shiites makes no difference to them,” said Ali Hussain Naqvi, a senior official with Majlis Wahdat-al-Muslimeen, a Shiite political party that staged street protests across the province after the bombing.

One factor behind the killings may be the proximity of Karachi, where Shiites have come under repeated attack in recent years. The bombing on Friday coincided with a visit to the city by the country’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, in an attempt to resolve the turbulent political and security situation there.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the dominant political party in Karachi, has accused security agencies of abducting and killing several of its members. The city is also under growing pressure from the Pakistani Taliban, which have attacked politicians, police officers, military bases and the city airport in recent years.

“Pakistan is emerging from a difficult time,” Mr. Sharif told reporters during a visit to the Karachi Stock Exchange. “Pakistan is fighting a decisive war, and we are now seeing the results.”

Mr. Sharif said that military courts recently approved by Parliament, which will allow the army to try suspects accused of being Taliban, would begin operation in the coming days.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan