Pakistan mosque blast that killed 100 is 'revenge against police'

Monday's attack was one of the deadliest ever staged on law enforcement authorities in Pakistan's history. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

PESHAWAR - Major arrests have been made in connection with the Pakistan mosque bombing that killed over 100 people on Monday, Peshawar police chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters on Wednesday.

He said police are investigating how the suicide bomber entered the highly-secured police area, and could not rule out internal assistance to carry out the attack.

A suicide blast at a mosque inside a Pakistan police headquarters was a targeted revenge attack, a police chief said on Tuesday, as rescue efforts ended with the death toll standing at 100.

Between 300 and 400 policemen had gathered for afternoon prayers at the compound’s mosque on Monday in the provincial capital Peshawar when an entire wall and most of the roof were blown out, showering rubble on the officers.

“We are on the front line taking action against militants and that is why we are targeted,” city police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan told AFP. “The purpose is to demoralise us as a force.”

On Tuesday evening, the rescuers finally ended a marathon operation that saw them extract survivors and bodies out of the wreckage, rushing those who could be saved to hospitals.

Constable Wajahat Ali, 23, whose feet were broken in the blast, told AFP from hospital that he had “remained trapped under the rubble with a body over me for seven hours. I had lost all hope of survival”.

Police officer Shahid Ali, another survivor, said the explosion took place seconds after the imam started prayers.

“I saw black smoke rising to the sky. I ran out to save my life,” the 47-year-old officer told AFP.

Low-level militancy, often targeting security checkpoints, has been steadily rising in the areas near Peshawar that border Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021.

The assaults are claimed mostly by the Pakistani Taliban, as well as the local chapter of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
(ISIS), but mass casualty attacks remain rare.

The head of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province police force, Inspector-General Moazzam Jah Ansari, told reporters that a suicide bomber had entered the mosque as a guest, carrying 10kg to 12kg of “explosive material in bits and pieces”.

He added that a militant group that was on-and-off affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban could be behind the attack.

Pakistani security officials inspecting the scene a day after a suicide bomb blast at a mosque in Peshawar, on Jan 31. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

‘He had died’

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told Pakistan’s National Assembly the dead included 97 police officers and three civilians, with 27 patients in critical condition.

The authorities are investigating how a major security breach could happen in one of the most tightly controlled areas of the city, housing intelligence and counter-terrorism bureaus, and next door to the regional secretariat.

“Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.

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Dozens of slain police officers have already been buried in several mass prayer ceremonies, with coffins lined up in rows and draped in the Pakistani flag while a guard of honour was performed.

Family and friends of 22-year-old officer Ali Aameer, who was just four months into the job, gathered in Peshawar on Tuesday for his funeral.

His uncle, Mr Mukhtiar Khan, had frantically called his nephew after learning of the attack.

“I kept calling his mobile phone from the police hospital and suddenly his number worked, but then it cut off,” Mr Khan said.

“I was happy though, (thinking) that he was alive. But when I called him a second time, the person who picked up said he had died.”

The White House on Tuesday called the attack “unconscionable” in a statement, echoing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who said such violence was “abhorrent”.

Pakistan is already being hobbled by a massive economic downturn and political chaos, ahead of elections due by October.

Most of the deceased in the attack, one of the deadliest staged on law enforcement authorities in Pakistan’s history, are police and other members of the security forces. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

Rising militancy

In a statement, the Pakistani Taliban – separate from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar ideology – denied it was responsible for the latest blast.

Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the group carried out a years-long wave of horrific violence after emerging in 2007.

But it has recently attempted to rebrand itself as a less brutal outfit, claiming not to target places of worship.

But a security official in Peshawar, who asked not to be named, said on Tuesday that the authorities were considering all possibilities.

These include the involvement of a TTP splinter faction, ISIS or a coordinated attack by several groups.

“Often in the past, militant groups – including the TTP – that carry out attacks in mosques do not claim them” because a mosque is considered a sacred place, the official told AFP.

Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation that started in 2014 largely restored order.

Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas adjacent to Peshawar and bordering Afghanistan have become emboldened since the return of the Afghan Taliban.

“Terrorism has become a national security crisis for Pakistan again – as it was a decade ago – and it will worsen unless concerted action is taken to address it,” Brookings Institution analyst Madiha Afzal told AFP.

Mass casualty attacks are relatively rare, with ISIS claiming the most recent blast on a Shiite mosque in Peshawar in March 2022 that killed 64.

Provinces around the country announced that they were on high alert after the blast.

Checkpoints have been ramped up, and extra security forces have been deployed.

In the capital Islamabad, snipers were posted on buildings and at city entrance points. AFP

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