ISLAMABAD - Most of the victims are from Pakistan's Shi'ite Muslim minority, but the real aim is to undermine President Pervez Musharraf, say analysts assessing Karachi's descent into a bloody spate of sectarian violence.

At least 20 people were killed and about 50 wounded in a bomb attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the restive southern city last Monday, less than a month after a similar attack on another mosque in which 24 were killed.

The perpetrators are thought to be militants belonging to the Sunni Muslim majority, to which Musharraf belongs.

Unlike the president, who sees himself as an enlightened moderate, the militants are Deobandis, followers of a South Asian brand of Islam akin to the ultra-conservative Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia.

Musharraf made die-hard militants his enemies by abandoning support for the Taliban regime in neighbouring Afghanistan and joining the US-led war on terror in late 2001, and later by pursuing peace with India.

"All these groups think they have been betrayed by the government of Pakistan," political analyst Hasan Askari said.

"These attacks appear to be meant to create chaos to avenge this betrayal. And if you want to create chaos, you can make it sectarian or any other form," he said.

This is a commonly held opinion among Pakistan's political thinkers. "There can be other reasons for these attacks but the main reason remains the same - the war on terror," said Dr Mutahir Ahmed, professor of International Relations at Karachi University.

Musharraf narrowly escaped two attempts on his life late last year in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, which were blamed on Islamic militants with links to al Qaeda.

Differences between Sunnis and Shi'ites date back to the controversy which erupted over the Prophet Mohammad's succession and which led to civil war within three decades of his death in 632.

Pakistan, created in 1947 as a home for South Asia's Muslims, saw sectarian rivalry early on between its Sunni majority and the Shi'ites who make up close to 20 per cent of the Muslim population.

Bombs, assassinations

Shi'ite militants lack the infrastructure to match their Sunni enemies bomb for bomb, and typically strike back by killing a Sunni religious leader.

The assassination of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a radical Sunni preacher, on Sunday looked to many like a classic case of Shi'ite revenge for a May 7 bomb attack.

Shamzai had not been heavily linked to sectarian violence but the Binoria mosque complex he headed was a recruiting ground for the mujahideen, or holy warriors, many of whom joined the Taliban, fought the Indian army in Kashmir, and became comrades with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Musharraf even sent Shamzai on a mission with the then head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant-General Mehmood Ahmed, to try to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden in the days after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.

The mission failed and just months later, Shamzai was again preaching holy war against the US.

He is the fourth senior cleric at the Binoria mosque to have been gunned down over the past six years.

Last year, Azam Tariq, head of the militant anti-Shi'ite Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of the Companions of the Prophet) group, was gunned down on the outskirts of Islamabad.

Karachi has seen a series of attacks on Western and Christian targets over the past two years.

In 2002, police arrested a key Islamic militant in Karachi who was wanted in connection with an assassination plot against Musharraf.

Also last week, a policeman was killed and more than 30 people hurt when two car bombs detonated by suspected Sunni militants exploded near the home of the US Consul.

That attack came hard on the heels of the arrest of six members of the Harkat ul-Mujahideen al-Alami, an al Qaeda-linked group involved in the 2002 plot against the president.

Analysts say continuing attacks by miltants in Pakistan carried a message for Musharraf that they would hit back if his government tried to squeeze them more.

"They want to tell the government that they can make the life miserable if they were targeted," analyst Askari said.

"They want to show they can stir disturbance anywhere in the country, no matter, in whatever shape."

(Agencies via Xinhua)