At least 25 worshippers were killed and 35 others sustained injuries when a suicide bomber attacked the Friday prayers at a mosque in the Anbar Tehsil of Mohmand Agency. “I cried for help, but no one came to me. there were other bodies. wounded worshippers, who were reciting verses from Quran and waiting for help”, he said from his hospital bed.
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The group said it was a revenge attack on the village tribesmen for launching an assault on its forces and capturing militants and handing them over to the government.
Shireen Zada, a resident who had prayed at another mosque, said he heard the blast as he was walking home.
KHAR, Pakistan (AP) A Pakistani official says the death toll from a suicide bombing at a mosque has risen to 36 after several of those wounded in the attack died in hospitals.
Security agencies have launched search operation in Batt Meena and its adjoining areas.
The attacker shouted “God is Great” as he entered the mosque in the village of Ambar in Pakistan’s Mohmand tribal region, government administrator Naveed Akbar told The Associated Press.
The injured were transported to hospitals in Bajaur Agency, Charsadda and Peshawar for treatment.
“The cowardly attacks by terrorists can not shatter the governments resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country”, he said in a statement. The explosion took place during the weekly Friday prayers.
The group also claimed responsibility for an attack on lawyers in Quetta, which killed 73 people on August 8. Last year, the country recorded its lowest number of killings since 2007, when the Pakistani Taliban was formed.
“The cowardly attacks by terrorists can not shatter the government’s resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country”, read a statement from Nawaz Sharif’s office.
“This attack against civilians at a mosque during Friday prayers is an appalling reminder that terrorism threatens all countries in the region, and we send our deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed as well as our thoughts and prayers to those injured”, the White House said in a statement released by National Security Council spokesperson, Ned Price.
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Pakistan’s deadliest ever attack occurred in Peshawar in December 2014, when Taliban militants stormed a school killing more than 150 people, mostly children.
