A suicide bomber attacked a Sunni mosque in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing dozens of worshippers and wounding many others, officials said.
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According to the political administration sources the explosion took place when people were returning home from the mosque after Friday prayers.
“A portion of the mosque and verandah collapsed in the blast and fell on worshippers”.
Meanwhile, rescue operations had begun and injured were being shifted to hospitals in Bajaur Agency, Peshawar and Charsadda for medical treatment.
The report said that at least 16 others were also injured in this blast and a number of them are still in the critical condition. Previous such large-scale attacks have usually targeted Shiite mosques.
Officials say more than 3,500 terrorists have been killed since the army-led Zarb-e-Azb offensive was launched in the North Waziristan tribal districts and surrounding areas.
Tribal elder Haji Subhanullah Mohmand said the attack may have been carried out by militants seeking revenge after local tribesmen raised a volunteer force and killed one insurgent and captured another.
The statement read that the United States stood with the people of Pakistan against the scourge of terrorism and would continue to work with the government of Pakistan against those who committed such outrageous attacks.
Mohmand Agency, one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan, is considered one of the nerve centers of the Pakistani Taliban.
Earlier this month, a suicide bomber attacked a court in Mardan and killed 14 people, while in August another suicide bomb attack killed 73 people, half of which were lawyers.
The army launched an operation in June 2014 to wipe out militant bases in the northwestern tribal areas and end the bloody insurgency that has cost thousands of civilian lives.
Jamaat-ul-Ahra, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the bombing that also injured 34 people, according to the group’s spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan.
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The report further quoted Hussain as saying that the cowardly attacks by terrorists can not shatter the government’s resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country.
