Bomber carried out the attack during afternoon prayers when the mosque was packed with worshipers and most of the victims were reportedly police officers from a nearby station.
The explosion reportedly took place during afternoon prayers when the mosque was packed with worshipers.
(AP)
A powerful bomb went off at a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than a hundred worshippers, according to police and government officials.
The bomber reportedly detonated his suicide vest on Monday as some 150 worshipers, including many policemen from a nearby police office, were praying inside.
"Many policemen are buried under the rubble," said Peshawar police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan, who estimated between 300 and 400 officers usually attended prayers at the mosque.
"Efforts are being made to get them out safely," he said.
Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The main spokesman for the militant group was not immediately available for comment.
The impact of the explosion collapsed the roof of the mosque, which caved in and injured many, Zafar Khan, a Peshawar police officer, told AP news agency.
A survivor, 38-year-old police officer Meena Gul, said he was inside the mosque when the bomb went off. He said he doesn't know how he survived unhurt, adding he could hear cries and screams after the bomb exploded.
Dawn newspaper reported that many of the injured were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital.
Rescuers scrambled trying to remove mounds of debris from the mosque grounds and get to worshippers still trapped under the rubble, police said.
Khan said several of the wounded, many of whom were police officers, were listed in critical condition at a hospital and there were fears the death toll would rise.
Condemnation
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the bombing and ordered authorities to ensure the best possible medical treatment for the victims. He also vowed “stern action" against those who were behind what he called a suicide attack.
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan also condemned the bombing, calling it a “terrorist suicide attack" in a Twitter posting.
“My prayers & condolences go to victims families," said the ex-premier. “It is imperative we improve our intelligence gathering & properly equip our police forces to combat the growing threat of terrorism.”
A statement from Türkiye's foreign ministry "in the strongest possible terms condemned the heinous act of terrorism."
Suspicion in such attacks falls most often on the Pakistani Taliban, who have in the past claimed similar bombings.The Pakistani Taliban, are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and are a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after a 20-year invasion.
The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
Since the Taliban surged back to power in Afghanistan, Islamabad has accused them of failing to secure their mountainous border, allowing fighters to flit back and forth to stage attacks and escape capture.
Over the first 12 months of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistan witnessed a 50 percent surge in militant attacks, focused in the western border provinces, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS).Last year, a suicide attack inside a mosque in Peshawar’s Kocha Risaldar area claimed 56 lives.
Detectives said the March 2022 Daesh bomber in Peshawar was an Afghan exile who had returned home to train for the attack.
Peshawar was also the site of a 2014 massacre by the TTP, who raided a school for children of army personnel and killed nearly 150 people, most of them pupils.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
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