A suicide attack leaves at least 27 dead and 140 injured in a mosque in Pakistan

A suicide attack against a mosque has left at least 27 dead, including several policemen, and 140 injured in the city of Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, an event that led authorities to declare themselves “in a state of war” against terrorism.

“The deaths have risen to 27, and there are more than 140 injured,” a city police officer, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, told the media. at the entrance to the attacked mosque. The source has specified that the rescue teams continue to locate injured people from under the rubble caused by the strong explosion, which took place when the mosque was especially crowded during one of the prayers.

“There were more than three hundred worshipers in the mosque, and (the suicide attack) took place during prayer,” Khan explained. A spokesman for the city’s Lady Reading hospital, Asim Khan, told EFE that around twenty injured are in serious condition, and has indicated that the medical center has been forced to make an appeal to donate blood to treat the dozens of victims of the attack.

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has assured that the suicide bomber was in the front row during prayers, and has claimed that the State must act against terrorists. “It is time for us to fight the war against terrorism again,” Asif said in an interview with Pakistani television Geo TV.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, has for his part condemned the “brutal murder of Muslims while praying to Allah”. For the moment, no insurgent formation has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Increase in attacks in Pakistan

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 his explosives in a mosque of the Shiite minority, leaving 56 dead and almost 200 injured.

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 of tribal armed groups Created in 2007 and an ally of the Afghan Taliban, it has increased its attacks after ending a ceasefire with the government last November.

The TTP further claimed to have joined forces with separatist groups in the southern province of Balochistan. Since its formation, the group has carried out a brutal campaign of terrorist attacks across the country and killed thousands of people, including a 2012 assassination attempt on future Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.

The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) 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 wounded. 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 between Pakistan and Afghanistan worsen under the interim government of the Taliban, who seized power in August 2021.