Pakistan mosque bombing: Attacker was wearing military uniform, police say
Global News
The blast collapsed the roof of the 50-year-old mosque, killing 101 people, mostly policemen. Two hundred twenty-five people were injured.
A suicide bomber who killed 101 people at a mosque in northwest Pakistan this week had disguised himself in a police uniform and did not raise suspicion among guards, the provincial police chief said on Thursday.
Moazzam Jah Ansari said the bomber had been identified and police were close to arresting members of the network that was behind Monday’s attack, one of the deadliest ever in Peshawar, the capital in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“We will avenge the martyrdom of each and every policeman,” Ansari told a news conference.
The blast collapsed the roof of the 50-year-old mosque, killing 101 people, mostly policemen. Two hundred twenty-five people were injured.
Ansari spoke a day after dozens of police officers in a rare move joined a peace march organized by the members of civil society groups in Peshawar, demanding protection for themselves.
Hours after the bombing, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif accused the Pakistani Taliban, known by the acronym TTP, of carrying out the attack, saying they were operating from neighboring Afghan territory. Pakistan wants the Afghan Taliban to take action against the TTP group.
Shortly after the bombing, a TTP commander claimed responsibility, but more than 10 hours after the attack the chief spokesman for the group distanced the TTP from the carnage, saying it was not its policy to attack mosques.
On Wednesday, Afghanistan’s Taliban-appointed foreign minister, however, had asked Pakistani authorities to look for the reasons behind militant violence in their country instead of blaming Afghanistan. The comments from Amir Khan Muttaqi came after Pakistani officials said the attackers who orchestrated Monday’s suicide bombing were using Afghan soil to target civilians and security forces.