PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The death toll from yesterday’s suicide bombing at a mosque in northwestern Pakistani rose to 83 on Tuesday, officials said. The assault on a Sunni mosque inside a significant police facility was one among the deadliest attacks on Pakistani security forces lately.
Greater than 300 worshippers were praying within the mosque in the town of Peshawar, with more approaching, when the bomber set off his explosives vest on Monday morning. The blast ripped through the mosque, killing and injuring scores and in addition blew off an element of the roof.
What was left of the roof then caved in, injuring many more, in keeping with Zafar Khan, a police officer. Rescuers needed to remove mounds of debris to achieve worshippers still trapped under the rubble.
More bodies were retrieved from the rubble of the mosque overnight and early on Tuesday, in keeping with Mohammad Asim, a government hospital spokesman in Peshawar, and several other of those critically injured died in hospital.
“Most of them were policemen,” Asim said of the victims.
Bilal Faizi, the chief rescue official, said rescue teams were still working Tuesday at the positioning of the mosque — positioned inside a police compound in a high security zone of the town — as more persons are believed trapped inside after the roof caved in.
He said the bombing also wounded greater than 150 people. It was not clear how the bomber was capable of slip into the walled compound in a high-security zone with other government buildings.
Also on Tuesday, mourners were burying the bombing victims at different graveyards in Peshawar and elsewhere.
Authorities haven’t determined who was behind the bombing. Shortly after the explosion on Monday, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, also referred to as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Twitter.
But hours later, TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not its policy to focus on mosques, seminaries and non secular places, adding that those collaborating in such acts could face punitive motion under TTP’s policy. His statement didn’t address why a TTP commander had claimed responsibility for the bombing.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. That is at least an attack on Pakistan,” tweeted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who visited the wounded in Peshawar and vowed “stern motion” against those behind the bombing.
Sharif expressed his condolences to families of the victims, saying their pain ”can’t be described in words.”
Pakistan, which is generally Sunni Muslim, has seen a surge in militant attacks since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended their cease-fire with government forces.
Earlier this month, the Pakistani Taliban claimed one among its members shot and killed two intelligence officers, including the director of the counterterrorism wing of the country’s military-based spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence. Security officials said Monday the gunman was traced and killed in a shootout within the northwest near the Afghan border.
The TTP is separate from but an in depth ally of the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan prior to now 15 years, in search of stricter enforcement of Islamic laws, the discharge of its members in government custody and a discount within the Pakistani military presence in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province it has long used as its base.
Meena Gul, who was within the mosque when the bomb went off, said he doesn’t know the way he survived unharmed. The 38-year-old police officer said he heard cries and screams after the blast.
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Pakistani Taliban have a powerful presence, and the town has been the scene of frequent militant attacks.
The Afghan Taliban seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops pulled in a foreign country after 20 years of war.
The Pakistani government’s truce with the TTP ended because the country was still contending with unprecedented flooding that killed 1,739 people, destroyed greater than 2 million homes, and at one point submerged as much as a 3rd of the country.022.
Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said in an announcement that it was “saddened to learn that many people lost their lives and lots of others were injured by an explosion at a mosque in Peshawar” and condemned attacks on worshippers as contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Condemnations also got here from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, in addition to the U.S. Embassy, adding that “America stands with Pakistan in condemning all types of terrorism.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the bombing “particularly abhorrent” for targeting a spot of worship, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Money-strapped Pakistan faces a severe economic crisis and is in search of an important installment of $1.1 billion from the International Monetary Fund — a part of its $6 billion bailout package — to avoid default. Talks with the IMF on reviving the bailout have stalled prior to now months.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called the bombing a “terrorist suicide attack.” He tweeted: “My prayers & condolences go to victims families. It’s imperative we improve our intelligence gathering & properly equip our police forces to combat the growing threat of terrorism.”
Sharif’s government got here to power in April after Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Khan has since campaigned for early elections, claiming his ouster was illegal and a part of a plot backed by the USA. Washington and Sharif dismiss Khan’s claims.