No fewer than 47 people have been killed and 150 more wounded by a suicide bomber in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar.
The suicide bomber allegedly targeted policemen praying in a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan.
The bomber struck during early afternoon prayers at a mosque in Peshawar’s “Police Lines” area, a secured zone within the sprawling city where the regional Police Secretariat is located, along with apartments housing officers and other security staff.
Mohammed Asim, a spokesperson for the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, told CBS News’ Maria Usman, confirmed the incident on Monday.
There was fear the death toll could still rise, as many of those hospitalized were brought in with critical injuries.
A government official said many of the casualties were Police officers who had gathered for noon prayers.
The mosque is located within a compound that includes the headquarters of the provincial police force and a counterterrorism department, Peshawar’s police chief Ijaz Khan said on Monday.
The building is located in a highly fortified area of the city. There were at least 260 people inside, police official Sikandar Khan said.
“A portion of the building had collapsed and several people are believed to be under it,” he added.
The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the bombing in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. A commander of the group issued the claim in a tweet.
As CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai reports, the terror group recently broke off peace talks with the country’s government and relaunched military operations against state security forces.
The TTP is believed to have gained strength over the last couple years, since the Afghan Taliban retook control of the neighboring country in August 2021. The TTP are a separate group to the Afghan Taliban, but they are close allies.
The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan for 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of members in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
A Pakistani security officer said the country’s armed forces had made significant strides against the TTP, but that the group had managed to regain operational strength by operating across the Afghan border, enabling it to “start attacking soft targets in Pakistan.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said: “terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan”.
The official said TTP leaders were orchestrating attacks inside Pakistan from Afghan soil, and said it was the “duty and responsibility” of the Afghan Taliban regime ruling the neighboring nation to prevent such operations.
A survivor of Monday’s attack, 38-year-old police officer Meena Gul, said he was inside the mosque when the bomb went off. He said he didn’t know how he survived unhurt. He could hear cries and screams after the bomb exploded, he said. Gul said there were more than 150 worshippers inside the mosque when the bomb went off.
Another local officer, Aftab Khan, said he was preparing to go to the mosque to pray when he heard the “huge blast.”
“Due to security threats and fears of Taliban attack, police were on high alert,” he said, “but this tragic attack took the lives of many police and civilians.”
Pakistan’s DAWN TV network quoted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as condemning the attack and lambasting the attackers as having “nothing to do with Islam.”
“Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan,” he said, alluding to the high number of security forces who use the mosque.
“The entire nation is standing united against the menace of terrorism.”