A senior pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan was gunned down yesterday outside his mosque in the southern city of Karachi, and his death unleashed violent protests in which at least 17 people were hurt.

Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who had called for a ?jihad,? or holy war, against the United States after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was fatally wounded, police said. His son, another relative, a bodyguard and a driver were also hit.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack or whether it was a sectarian killing.

?As soon as we sat in the car, we heard gun shots and we immediately ducked,? the cleric?s relative, Rafiuddin, told reporters. ?I felt a strong pain in my leg, I had been shot and than I saw Mufti Shamzai Sahib covered in blood.?

Religious Affairs Minister Ijazul Haq told Pakistan television that the shooting was a condemnable act of terrorism. ?This is purely a terrorist act by those who want anarchy and chaos and who want to create sectarian tensions,? he said.

Provincial security adviser Aftab Sheikh told Reuters it had been known Shamzai?s life was under threat and the government had provided him with armed bodyguards.

?It was a targeted killing and according to our information about 10 to 12 people were involved,? he said. ?It is a continuation of recent acts of violence and terrorism.?

He said a high court judge would hold an inquiry and offered two million rupees ($34,632) for information on the assailants. The crackle of gunfire was heard as violent demonstrations broke out in several parts of Karachi. Small groups of Shamzai?s followers came out on the streets, pelting vehicles with stones and burning tires.

Appeal for calm

A Reuters correspondent at the scene said thousands of people, many carrying batons, had gathered near Shamzai?s Islamic school, located in a central commercial area, and had set fire to two banks, several shops, a petrol station and two cinema houses.

?There is a lot of smoke in the air from the burning tyres and building, glass is scattered all around from damaged vehicles, and people are really charged,? he said. ?There is heavy shelling of tear gas and police fired gun shots in the air to disperse the crowd,? another witness said.

In the middle-class neighborhood of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, an enraged mob threw stones at an outlet of American fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, and broke its windows, police said. A government-run National Saving Center was also attacked.

Doctors at city hospitals said five people, two policemen among them, had arrived with gun shot wounds and 12 more policemen had been injured by stones. Senior police official Tariq Jamil said 50 protesters had been detained.

Ishratul Ibad, governor of the province of Sindh, whose capital is Karachi, a sprawling port city of 14 million people, appealed for calm.

?I appeal to the people and to his supporters as well, we all equally share the grief, but cooperate with us and we will certainly catch his killers,? Ibad said on Geo television.

Shamzai belonged to the hard-line Deobandi school of Islamic thought, which has provided thousands of fighters to the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. Several Pakistani Islamic militant groups considered him their spiritual leader.

His school, the Jamiat-ul-Uloom-il-Islamaiyyah, also known as Banuri Town, taught many students who went on to become important members of the Taliban regime in Kabul. Two senior clerics of the seminary were also murdered in 1998 and 1999.

Shamzai led a delegation of Pakistani clerics and intelligence officials to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar with a message from the government soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

At the time, militant sources had said Shamzai held a separate meeting with Omar to assure him of the support of Pakistani clerics, against the wishes of President Pervez Musharraf?s government.

The Taliban, accused of harboring Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and his shadowy al Qaeda network, were ousted from power in a US-led war late in 2001.

Karachi has suffered a spate of militant and sectarian violence. This month, 15 Shi?ite worshippers were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a mosque and a policeman was killed when two car bombs went off Wednesday near the home of the US consul.

Aamir ASHRAF