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The death toll from a suicide bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan rose to 88 on Tuesday, officials said. The attack, on a Sunni mosque at a major police facility, was one of the biggest attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent years.
More than 300 worshipers were praying at a mosque in the nearby city of Peshawar when a bomber detonated his explosive vest on Monday morning. The explosion tore apart the mosque, killing and injuring and also blowing off part of the roof.
What was left of the roof then collapsed, injuring many others, according to Zafar Khan, a police officer. Rescuers had to clear the rubble to reach the pilgrims who were still trapped under the rubble.
More bodies were retrieved overnight and early Tuesday, according to Mohammad Asim, a spokesman for a government hospital in Peshawar, and some of the critically injured died. “Most of them are police,” Asim said of the victims.
Bilal Faizi, chief rescue officer, said rescue teams were still working Tuesday at the site as more people were trapped inside. Mourners buried the bomb victims in different cemeteries in the city and elsewhere. The bomb also killed more than 150 people.
It is not clear how the bombers were able to enter the walled compound in the high-security zone with other government buildings and reach the mosque – an indication of major security concerns.
The investigation will show “how the terrorists entered the mosque,” said Ghulam Ali, the provincial governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
“Yes, this is a security breach,” he said.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited a hospital in Peshawar after the bombing and vowed “stern action” against those behind the attack.
The scale of the attack was ‘unimaginable,’ the PM said
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is nothing less than an attack on Pakistan,” he tweeted. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying the pain was “indescribable in words.”
Authorities have not determined who was behind the bomb. Shortly after the explosion, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP – claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Twitter.
But a few hours later, TTP spokesman Mohammad Khurasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not their policy to target mosques, seminaries and religious places, adding that those involved in such actions could face punitive actions under TTP policy. The statement did not explain why the TTP commander claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Pakistan, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim, has been plagued by militant attacks since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a ceasefire with government forces.
Earlier this month, the Pakistani Taliban claimed one of its members shot and killed two intelligence officers, including the director of the counterterrorism wing of the country’s military-based Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Security officials said a gunman was tracked down and killed in a shootout in the northwest near the Afghan border.
The TTP is separate from but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan for the past 15 years, calling for stricter enforcement of Islamic law, freeing its members from government custody and reducing Pakistan’s military presence in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province it has long used as a base. .
The Pakistani Taliban have a strong presence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and Peshawar has been the target of frequent militant attacks. In 2014, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban attacked an army-run school in Peshawar and killed 154, mostly schoolchildren.
ISIS’s regional affiliate has also been behind deadly attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Violence has also increased since the Afghan Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021, when US and NATO forces withdrew from the country after 20 years of war.
The Pakistani government’s ceasefire with the TTP ended as the country was still reeling from unprecedented floods, which killed 1,739 people, destroyed more than 2 million homes, and at one point submerged up to a third of the country.
The Peshawar bombing was ‘horrific,’ Blinken said
The Taliban-controlled Afghan Foreign Ministry said it was “saddened to know that many people were killed” in Peshawar and condemned the attack on worshipers as contrary to Islamic teachings.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on a visit to the Middle East, tweeted his condolences, saying the bombing in Peshawar was a “horrific attack.”
“Terrorism for any reason anywhere is indefensible,” he said.
Condemnations also came from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, as well as the US Embassy, adding that “the United States stands with Pakistan in condemning all forms of terrorism.”
Cash-strapped Pakistan is facing a severe economic crisis and is seeking a crucial US$1.1 billion installment from the International Monetary Fund – part of a $6 billion bailout package – to avoid default. Talks with the IMF about reviving the bailout have stalled in recent months.
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