An attack on a Shia Muslim procession in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi has left 23 people dead, police say.
Officials said a suicide bomber targeted the procession as it approached a mosque near the city centre. Another 62 people were hurt.
Blasts earlier on Wednesday outside a Shia mosque in the southern city of Karachi killed at least two people, and a bomb in Quetta left five dead.
The bombings come as Shias marked the holy month of Muharram.
First reports from Rawalpindi said 10 people had died in the attack late on Wednesday night, but officials raised the figure on Thursday morning.
Police rescue spokeswoman Deeba Shehnaz said several people who were critically wounded had died in hospital.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks. Attacks on Shia by hardline Sunnis have increased in recent months in Pakistan.
Karachi, where the mosque was apparently targeted, has a long history of sectarian tensions. A second blast there left at least seven people wounded, police official Javed Odho said.
Police say the remote-controlled bomb in Quetta exploded near a security vehicle escorting schoolchildren.
BBC’s Aleem Maqbool: “Karachi really has a sense, right now, of a city on high alert”
Three of those killed were soldiers and two civilians. About 30 people were wounded, some of them critically.
Quetta is the capital of the south-western province of Balochistan, where a separatist insurgency is being waged by ethnic militants demanding more autonomy and a greater share of natural resources.
Pakistan’s military also has troops in the province engaged in a long-running battle against militants in tribal areas near the Afghan border.
(BBC)
