Pakistani police reported that at least 27 people were killed and 140 injured in an explosion at a Pakistani mosque. product of a suicide attack inside the temple located in the city of Peshawar.
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The attack occurred during the afternoon prayer in the aforementioned city, which is located near the border with Afghanistan; That is why there are suspicions that the Pakistani Taliban are responsible, who have already committed this type of attack in the past. However, no armed group has yet claimed responsibility for the events.
The terrorist blew himself up in the morning when the faithful, among whom were several policemen, were saying the corresponding prayers inside the mosque.
The explosion seriously affected the structure, as part of the roof and walls of the mosque were destroyed and injured several of the faithful who were in the temple.
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A city police officer, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, at the entrance to the attacked mosque, told the media present that “There were more than three hundred worshipers in the mosque and (the suicide attack) took place during prayers.”
A spokesman for the city’s Lady Reading hospital, Asim Khan, told EFE that some twenty injured are in serious condition, and noted that the medical center has been forced to make an appeal to donate blood to treat the dozens of victims of the attack.
The Pakistani Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif, assured that the suicide bomber was in the front row during the prayers, and claimed that the State must act against the terrorists.
“It is time for us to fight the war on terror again,” Asif said in an interview with Pakistani Geo TV.
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Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the “brutal killing of Muslims while praying to Allah.”
For the moment, no insurgent formation has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Increase in attacks
The latest attack on a religious center in Pakistan took place in the same city of Peshawar in March 2022, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a Shiite minority mosque, killing 56 and injuring nearly 200.
Terrorist attacks and insurgent attacks have increased in recent months in Pakistan after several years of relative calm, largely due to the resurgence of the main Pakistani Taliban group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The formation, an umbrella group of tribal armed groups created in 2007 and an ally of the Afghan Taliban, has increased its attacks after ending a ceasefire with the government last November. The TTP also claimed to have joined forces with separatist groups in the southern province of Balochistan.
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Since its formation, the group has carried out a brutal campaign of terror attacks across the country and killed thousands of people, including a 2012 assassination attempt on Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group has also carried out attacks in the past in Pakistan, one of the worst in 2018 against a rally in Balochistan, which left 128 dead and 122 injured. A second attack that same day in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province caused 4 deaths and 19 injuries.
Attacks began to decline in 2014 following a crackdown by Pakistani authorities, but signs of a resurgence are becoming clearer as relations worsen between Pakistan and an Afghanistan under interim rule by the Taliban, which seized power in August 2021.
EFE