The mosque is located within a heavily guarded compound that includes the headquarters of the provincial police force and a section of the counter-terrorism agency.
At least 61 people have been killed and nearly 180 injured, mostly policemen, in a suicide bomber attack inside a mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar.
The mosque is located within a heavily guarded compound that includes the headquarters of the provincial police force and a section of the counter-terrorism agency.
The explosion occurred during prayer time in this highly sensitive part of the city, located about 50 kilometers from the border with Afghanistan.
The attack prompted the government to put the entire country on alert.
“It was a suicide bombing,” Peshawar police chief Ijaz Khan told Reuters. At least 47 people were killed and 176 injured, he said, many of them in critical condition.
The mosque was packed with up to 400 worshipers at the time of the blast, he said, adding that most of the dead were police officers.
Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif called the blast a suicide attack.
Footage from the state-run PTV network showed police and residents trying to clear debris from the blast site and carry injured people on their backs.
Police said the attacker allegedly passed through several roadblocks manned by security forces to enter the “Red Zone”.
“We found traces of explosives,” Khan told reporters, adding that there was a clear security lapse as the bomber managed to get into the most secure area of the compound. An investigation has been launched into how the attacker got past such a security cordon and whether he had help from the inside.
A rescue operation was immediately launched to free those trapped in the rubble, with the roof and one wall of the building having collapsed in the blast.
An AFP journalist saw bloodied wounded people coming out of the damaged building and unconscious people, apparently dead, being taken away in ambulances.
Officials said the bomber detonated the explosive device he brought as hundreds of people lined up to pray.
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told Geo TV that the bomber was standing in the front row of worshippers.
“Many policemen are buried under the debris,” he told AFP. “We cannot say how many are still under the debris,” said provincial governor Haji Ghulam Ali.
A spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar told AFP that the death toll, previously 33, had risen to 47 and at least 150 were injured.
There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the attack, the worst in the city since March last year when a suicide attack on a Shiite Muslim mosque during Friday prayers killed at least 58 people and injured almost 200.
Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the attack.
Peshawar, located on the fringes of tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan, is often targeted by armed groups, including the Pakistani Taliban.
RES-EMP
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