21.   Violence erupted after news reached the town, one of the few Iranian cities with a Sunni majority, that a Sunni mosque had been destroyed in Mashhad.

22.   Rock throwing and exchanges of gunfire have often erupted in the past when the processions pass in front of Sunni mosques during prayer times.

23.   Tension surfaced between some Shiite and Sunni communities in eastern Iran after a Sunni mosque was destroyed by the authorities in Mashhad in January.

24.   The deaths came after a night of violence in Karachi which claimed seven other lives, including two people killed in a Sunni mosque on Friday night.