Bomb in mosque kills 12 women

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Hundreds of Shiite Muslims protested in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province Friday after a bomb ripped through one of their mosques, killing 12 worshippers, all of them women, and wounding at least 13 other people. There was no claim of responsibility for blast, which occurred around midnight Thursday in Bukker, 300 miles southwest of the capital of Islamabad.

Asif Hayyat, the Punjab police chief, described the bombing as an "act of terrorism" and said "foreign elements" could not be ruled out. Police recently arrested a number of al-Qaida suspects in Punjab.