Sipah-i-Sahaba leader Haideri shot dead

Gunmen killed the leader of a sectarian group branded a terrorist organization by the US in southern Pakistan early Monday, police said. His supporters staged riots in response, but no injuries were reported.

Ali Sher Haideri was gunned down along with a guard as they drove in Sindh province around 220 miles northeast of Karachi, the country’s largest city, officer Pir Mohammad Shah said.

One of the attackers was killed as Haideri’s guards returned fire, he said.

Haideri was the spiritual leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba, an extremist Sunni group blamed for attacks against the country’s minority Shiites, whom they regard as heretics.

Shah said the killing appeared to be related to a land dispute, not sectarian tension.
Haideri’s supporters took to the streets in some parts of Karachi, torching two buses and throwing stones at vehicles, witnesses said. They also burned tires, dumped garbage and uprooted trees along the main highway into Karachi causing traffic jams.

Pakistan banned Sipah-e-Sahaba after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as part of efforts to purge the country of extremism. Al-Qaida and the Taliban are also extremist Sunni groups and share Sipah’s anti-Shiite stance. The US State Department designated the group a terrorist organization in 2003.

Qari Mohammad Shafiq, a spokesman for Sipah, said Haideri was in his 50s.

The death of Haideri came a day after 17 Taliban militants were killed in an ambush in South Waziristan, a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border.

It was unclear who was responsible for the deaths of fighters loyal to commander Maulvi Nazir, though Nazir was known to have disputes with Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was believed killed in a CIA missile strike Aug. 5.

Shaheen Wazir, a commander of the Nazir faction, said the 17 fighters had been ambushed inside a Mehsud area.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq confirmed the incident, but said there were no differences between the Mehsud and Nazir groups. He theorized the incident could be a conspiracy to create a split in the Taliban.

Since Mehsud’s presumed death, several clashes among militants have been reported, with Pakistani officials saying they were evidence of a succession struggle among commanders to replace the Taliban leader