Peshawar, Pakistan, January 30, 2010 (FBC) A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded mosque in a heavily fortified compound in Pakistan, killing 47 people.
Police said the attacker bypassed several barricades manned by security forces to enter a “red zone” compound that houses police and counter-terrorism offices in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
“It was a massacre,” Peshawar police chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters. At least 47 people were killed and 176 were injured, many of them seriously.
It came a day before a delegation from the International Monetary Fund traveled to Islamabad to deliver a keynote address to the balance of payments-hit South Asian economy.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack.
Officials said the bomb detonated the cargo as hundreds of people lined up to offer their prayers.
“We have got hints of explosives,” Khan told reporters, adding that the bomber had sneaked into the most secure part of the compound, causing a security breach.
Inquiries were ongoing as to how the attacker breached such high-security cables and whether there was insider help.
Khan said the mosque hall was packed with up to 400 worshipers and most of the dead were policemen.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, the worst Islamic State attack in Peshawar since March 2022, when at least 58 people were killed during Friday prayers at a Shia Muslim mosque.
“Allah is greater than all.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo TV that the person who detonated the bomb was standing in front of the first row of worshippers.
“The prayer leader said, ‘Allah is great,’ and it was a big blow,” Mushtaq Khan, a head-injured policeman, told reporters from his hospital bed.
“We couldn’t tell what the stone was deafening. It threw me out of the balcony. The wall and the roof fell on me. Thank God it saved me.”
The blast brought down the top floor of the mosque, trapping dozens of worshipers in the rubble. Live television footage showed rescuers cutting through the collapsed roof to get down and victims becoming trapped in the rubble.
“We cannot say how many are under it,” said Haji Ghulam Ali, the governor of the province.
“The human tragedy is unimaginable,” said Sharif. “This is nothing less than an attack on Pakistan. The country is filled with deep sorrow. I have no doubt that terrorism is our main national security challenge.”
Eyewitnesses said it was chaotic as police and rescuers scrambled to take the injured to hospitals.
Sharif said that he has appealed to his party workers to donate blood in hospitals, adding that anyone who targets Muslims during prayers has nothing to do with Islam.
“The United States Mission in Pakistan expresses its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this horrific attack,” the Washington Embassy said in a statement.
Peshawar, located on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal provinces bordering Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, is frequently targeted by Islamist militant groups, including the Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban.
By Gibran Ahmed, reporting in Peshawar and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad; Writing by Shilpa Jamkandikar and Asif Shahzad; Editing by Miral Fahmy, Simon Cameron-More, Bernadette Baum and Mark Heinrich
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