PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a crowded mosque in Pakistan’s heavily fortified security complex on Monday, killing 47 people.
Police said the attackers passed through several barricades put up by security forces and appeared to have entered the “Red Zone” complex housing police and counter-terrorism offices in the volatile northwestern city of Peshawar. .
“It was a suicide bomber,” Peshawar police chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters. At least 47 people were killed and 176 injured, he said.
That was the day before a team from the International Monetary Fund was sent to Islamabad to begin talks to defund the balance of payments crisis-hit South Asian economy.
Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif condemned the attack.
Officials said the bomber detonated the package just as hundreds of people were queuing to pray.
“We found traces of explosives,” Khan told reporters, adding that there was an apparent security blunder as the bomber slipped through the most secure area of the compound.
An investigation was being conducted into how the attackers breached the elite security cordon and whether they had inside help.
Khan said the mosque hall was filled with up to 400 worshipers and most of the dead were police officers.
At least 58 people were killed in a March 2022 Islamic State suicide bombing at a Shia Muslim mosque in Peshawar during Friday prayers.
[1/17] Rescue workers search for survivors under a collapsed roof after a suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, on January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Fayaz Aziz
“Allah is best”
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told GeoTV that the bomber stood in the front row of worshipers.
“The big bang happened when the prayer leader said ‘Allah is the greatest,'” police officer Mushtak Khan, who suffered a head injury, told reporters from his hospital bed.
“The sound was deafening and I could not understand what had happened. I was thrown off the balcony. The walls and the roof fell on me. Thank God he saved me. He gave me.”
The explosion collapsed the upper floors of the mosque, trapping dozens of worshipers in the rubble. Live television footage showed rescuers cutting through the collapsed rooftop and descending, tending to victims caught in the rubble.
“We don’t know how many people are still under it,” state governor Haji Ghuram Ali said.
“The scale of human tragedy is unimaginable,” Sharif said. “This is nothing less than an attack on Pakistan. The country is devastated. Terrorism is without a doubt our greatest national security challenge.”
Witnesses described the chaotic scene as police and rescuers rushed the wounded to the hospital.
Sharif, who has urged his party employees to donate blood at hospitals, said those who target Muslims during prayers have nothing to do with Islam.
“The U.S. delegation to Pakistan extended its deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims of the horrific attack,” the Washington embassy said in a statement.
Peshawar, which straddles the edge of Pakistan’s tribal quarters that border Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, is frequently targeted by Islamic extremist groups, including Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban.
Reported by Jibran Ahmad of Peshawar and Asif Shahzad of Islamabad. Written by Shilpa Jamkhandikar and his Asif Shahzad.Edited by Miral Farmie, Simon Cameron Moore, Bernadette Baum, Mark Heinrich
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