A man with explosives strapped around his body and standing in the front row during Friday prayers in a mosque blew himself up, killing at least 14 Shia worshippers, including the imam, and injuring over 100 in Pakistan's port city of Karachi.
The suicide bombing took place at around 1350 IST in the Shia mosque located inside the government-run Sindh Madrassatul Islam religious school, established by the country's founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
The blast virtually ripped open the mosque's 40ft high ceiling and created mayhem. Television channels showed bits of flesh and pools of blood all around as rescuers shifted the wounded in ambulances to hospital.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
While 13 dead were brought to Karachi Civil Hospital, another body was taken to the Jinnah Hospital. Police said about 50 people were being treated for serious burn injuries while rest were discharged after treatment of minor injuries.
Soon after the blast, Shia mourners attacked police vehicles with stones and attempted to set them on fire.
Another bomb exploded in the premises of the high court building in Quetta, the provincial headquarters of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan, injuring a policeman and a bystander.
The bomb, believed to have been placed at a cycle-stand, went off at around 1100 IST, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the blast took place after an unidentified man parked a cycle in the stand and disappeared. The blast damaged three vehicles.
President Gen Pervez Musharraf condemned the blast as a 'heinous act of terrorism' and ordered an immediate probe into the attack. Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali also condemned the bombing.