KHAR – The Pakistan police on Monday combed through the bloody wreckage of a suicide blast that killed at least 54 people at an Islamist party’s political gathering ahead of elections due later in 2023.

Around 400 members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party – a key government coalition partner led by a firebrand cleric – were waiting for speeches to begin when the attacker detonated his vest near the front stage on Sunday.

“I was confronted with a devastating sight – lifeless bodies scattered on the ground while people cried out for help,” Mr Fazal Aman, who was near the tent when the bomb went off, told AFP.

The attack occurred in the town of Khar in the north-western Bajaur district, just 45km from the Afghan border, in an area where militancy has been rising since the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021.

Pakistan’s Parliament is likely to be dissolved after it completes its term in the next two weeks, with national elections to be held by mid-November or earlier.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Monday claimed responsibility for the bombing.

“A suicide attacker from the Islamic State... detonated his explosive jacket in the middle of a crowd” in Khar, the radical group’s news arm Amaq said in a statement.

On Monday, blood-stained shoes and prayer caps littered the site, along with ball bearings and steel bolts from the suicide vest.

Pieces of human flesh could still be seen, blasted 30m from the stage where the bomber detonated his device.

Thousands of mourners attended the first funeral ceremonies, including those held for two young cousins aged 16 and 17.

“It was not easy for us to lift two coffins. This tragedy has shattered our family,” said Mr Najib Ullah, the brother of one of the boys. “Our women are profoundly shocked and devastated. When I see the mothers of the victims, I find myself losing my own courage.”

The blast has raised fears Pakistan could be in for a bloody election period, following months of political chaos prompted by the ousting of Mr Imran Khan as prime minister in April 2022.

JUI-F’s leader, cleric Fazl-ur-Rehman, started political life as a firebrand Islamist hardliner, and while his party continues to advocate for socially conservative policies, he has in recent years forged alliances with secular rivals.

He has operated in the past as a facilitator for talks between the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a rival of ISIS.

In 2022, ISIS said it was behind attacks against religious scholars affiliated with JUI-F, which has a huge network of mosques and schools in the north and west of the country.

The jihadist group accuses JUI-F of hypocrisy for being a religious party while supporting secular governments and the military.

JUI-F officials hit out at the government for failing to provide security in areas where militants operate.

“The state has not fulfilled its responsibilities. I think the state has failed regardless of who is in power,” said Mr Shams uz Zaman, deputy general secretary of its Bajaur branch.

“For God’s sake, take notice of the situation.”

While Mr Rehman’s party never musters more than a dozen or so seats in Parliament, they can be crucial in any coalition and his ability to mobilise tens of thousands of religious school students allows him to punch above his weight.

“It is important to consider why workers of a religious-inclined political party could have been subjected to such bestial violence,” the Dawn newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.

“However ultra-conservative the JUI-F’s world view, the party has chosen to contest power and operate within the parameters set by the Constitution of Pakistan.”

A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the blast was “an attempt to weaken democracy”.

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021.

In January, a suicide bomber linked to Pakistan’s Taliban blew himself up in a mosque inside a police compound in the north-western city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers.

The militant assaults have been focused in regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil – a charge Kabul denies.

Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation launched in 2014 in north-western areas that were formerly Pakistani Taliban strongholds largely restored order.

The seven remote former tribal districts that border Afghanistan, of which Bajaur is one, were later brought into the legal and administrative mainstream after the passage of legislation in 2018.

Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas have become emboldened since the return of the Afghan Taliban.

The blast coincides with a visit to the country by a senior delegation of Chinese officials, including Vice-Premier He Lifeng, who arrived in the capital on Sunday evening. AFP