The death toll after a suicide bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan has risen to at least 89. At least ten dead were recovered from the rubble of the collapsed building on Tuesday night, said a local police spokesman for the German Press Agency. More than 220 people were injured. The attack happened Monday during midday prayers in a high-security zone in the city of Peshawar, which is also home to many police buildings.
The victims are mainly police officers, the spokesman said. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack. “It was nothing less than an attack on Pakistan,” he said.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. At the end of last year, however, the Pakistani Taliban – which are independent of the Islamist Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan – canceled a ceasefire with the government in Islamabad. Since then, they have claimed responsibility for several attacks. The terrorist militia Islamic State had also claimed responsibility for attacks on mosques in the past.
In Pakistan, the vast majority of the population of more than 230 million people is Muslim. For a long time, Peshawar, with its approximately two million inhabitants, was the center of a region of unrest in Pakistan – after a military offensive against Islamist terrorist groups in 2014, things calmed down there. In recent years, however, there have been more attacks there. It was not until March 2022 that an IS terrorist militia blew himself up in Peshawar, killing more than 60 people.
