PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The demise toll from the day before today’s suicide bombing at a mosque in northwestern Pakistani rose to 83 on Tuesday, officers stated. The assault on a Sunni mosque inside a significant police facility was one of many deadliest assaults on Pakistani safety forces in recent times.
Greater than 300 worshippers had been praying within the mosque within the metropolis of Peshawar, with extra approaching, when the bomber set off his explosives vest on Monday morning. The blast ripped by way of the mosque, killing and injuring scores and likewise blew off part of the roof.
What was left of the roof then caved in, injuring many extra, in accordance with Zafar Khan, a police officer. Rescuers needed to take away mounds of particles to succeed in worshippers nonetheless trapped below the rubble.
Extra our bodies had been retrieved from the rubble of the mosque in a single day and early on Tuesday, in accordance with Mohammad Asim, a authorities hospital spokesman in Peshawar, and several other of these critically injured died in hospital.
“Most of them had been policemen,” Asim stated of the victims.
Bilal Faizi, the chief rescue official, stated rescue groups had been nonetheless working Tuesday on the web site of the mosque — situated inside a police compound in a excessive safety zone of the town — as extra individuals are believed trapped inside after the roof caved in.
He stated the bombing additionally wounded greater than 150 folks. It was not clear how the bomber was in a position to slip into the walled compound in a high-security zone with different authorities buildings.
Additionally on Tuesday, mourners had been burying the bombing victims at completely different graveyards in Peshawar and elsewhere.
Authorities haven’t decided who was behind the bombing. Shortly after the explosion on Monday, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban, also called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed accountability for the assault in a submit on Twitter.
However hours later, TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not its coverage to focus on mosques, seminaries and non secular locations, including that these collaborating in such acts might face punitive motion below TTP’s coverage. His assertion didn’t deal with why a TTP commander had claimed accountability for the bombing.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. That is a minimum of an assault on Pakistan,” tweeted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who visited the wounded in Peshawar and vowed “stern motion” in opposition to these behind the bombing.
Sharif expressed his condolences to households of the victims, saying their ache ”can’t be described in phrases.”
Pakistan, which is generally Sunni Muslim, has seen a surge in militant assaults since November, when the Pakistani Taliban ended their cease-fire with authorities forces.
Earlier this month, the Pakistani Taliban claimed certainly one of its members shot and killed two intelligence officers, together with the director of the counterterrorism wing of the nation’s military-based spy company Inter-Companies Intelligence. Safety officers stated Monday the gunman was traced and killed in a shootout within the northwest close to the Afghan border.
The TTP is separate from however an in depth ally of the Afghan Taliban. The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan previously 15 years, in search of stricter enforcement of Islamic legal guidelines, the discharge of its members in authorities custody and a discount within the Pakistani navy presence in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province it has lengthy used as its base.
Meena Gul, who was within the mosque when the bomb went off, stated he doesn’t know the way he survived unharmed. The 38-year-old police officer stated he heard cries and screams after the blast.
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the place the Pakistani Taliban have a robust presence, and the town has been the scene of frequent militant assaults.
The Afghan Taliban seized energy in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops pulled overseas after 20 years of struggle.
The Pakistani authorities’s truce with the TTP ended because the nation was nonetheless contending with unprecedented flooding that killed 1,739 folks, destroyed greater than 2 million properties, and at one level submerged as a lot as a 3rd of the nation.022.
Afghanistan’s International Ministry stated in an announcement that it was “saddened to be taught that quite a few folks misplaced their lives and plenty of others had been injured by an explosion at a mosque in Peshawar” and condemned assaults on worshippers as opposite to the teachings of Islam.
Condemnations additionally got here from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad, in addition to the U.S. Embassy, including that “The USA stands with Pakistan in condemning all types of terrorism.”
U.N. Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres referred to as the bombing “notably abhorrent” for focusing on a spot of worship, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric stated.
Money-strapped Pakistan faces a extreme financial disaster and is in search of a vital installment of $1.1 billion from the Worldwide Financial Fund — a part of its $6 billion bailout bundle — to keep away from default. Talks with the IMF on reviving the bailout have stalled previously months.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan referred to as the bombing a “terrorist suicide assault.” He tweeted: “My prayers & condolences go to victims households. It’s crucial we enhance our intelligence gathering & correctly equip our police forces to fight the rising risk of terrorism.”
Sharif’s authorities got here to energy in April after Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Khan has since campaigned for early elections, claiming his ouster was unlawful and a part of a plot backed by the USA. Washington and Sharif dismiss Khan’s claims.
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