The death toll from Monday’s suicide bombing inside a mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, capital of Jiber Pakhtunkhwa province (north), has risen to 17 dead and nearly 90 wounded, officials confirmed.
Mohamad Asim, spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital, told the Pakistani newspaper Dawn that among the injured there are several in critical condition, so it is not ruled out that the death toll will rise in the coming hours.
The explosion also caused the collapse of part of the roof of the mosque, so it is feared that there are many victims still trapped in the rubble, as reported by the Pakistani newspaper ‘Daily Jang’.
Sources quoted by the Pakistani television channel Geo TV have detailed that the suicide bomber had placed himself in the front row during a prayer that was taking place in the mosque before setting off the explosive charge he was carrying, without any further details at the moment.
Following the attack, the provincial Health Department has declared a «medical emergency» and has asked all health workers to remain on alert to deal with the large number of victims.
For his part, the inspector general of the Islamabad Police, Akbar Nasir Jan, has put the capital on «maximum security alert» after the attack, as specified by the Islamabad Police through its account on the social network Twitter.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Jan has strongly condemned the attack and conveyed his condolences to the families of the victims. «It is imperative to enhance our intelligence gathering capabilities and adequately equip our police forces to combat the growing menace of terrorism,» he said.
Pakistani security forces have in recent weeks stepped up their operations against Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban, after the armed group announced in late November the end of a ceasefire agreed with Pakistani authorities amid contacts being brokered by the Afghan Taliban following their seizure of power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The TTP group, which differs from the Afghan Taliban in organizational matters but follows the same rigorist interpretation of Sunni Islam, brings together more than a dozen Islamist militant groups operating in Pakistan, where they have killed some 70,000 people in two decades of violence.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
