The attack that killed 100 people in a mosque within the police headquarters of Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, was committed in retaliation for police operations targeting armed Islamist groups, said Tuesday the head of the local police.
About 300 to 400 police were gathered at a mosque inside the usually heavily guarded perimeter on Monday when the explosion occurred at the time of the noon prayer.
The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital, announced that the latest death toll was 100 dead and 221 injured. According to Interior Minister Ranah Sanaullah, the attack killed 97 police officers and three civilians, and 27 injured were in critical condition by the evening.
"We are on the front line" in this fight against armed Islamist movements "and that is why we have been targeted," Peshawar police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan told AFP.
"The terrorists want to create panic by targeting those who are fulfilling their duty to defend Pakistan," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.
Attacks by insurgents against patrols, roadblocks or police stations have increased in Peshawar, located about 50 kilometers from the border with Afghanistan, and in the surrounding former tribal areas, since the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul in August 2021.
They are mainly led by the Pakistani Taliban of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which regained their freedom of movement with the departure of American forces from Afghanistan, or by EI-K, the regional branch of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). But large-scale attacks, like this one, remain rather rare.
Moazzam Jah Ansari, the provincial police chief, told the press that a suicide bomber had managed to enter the mosque, carrying ten to twelve kilos of "explosives in small pieces".
He added that a group sometimes affiliated with the TTP, sometimes dissident, could be behind this attack.
Shahid Ali, a 47-year-old policeman who was at the scene, told AFP the blast happened shortly after the imam began the prayer.
"I saw black smoke rising towards the sky. I ran to save my skin," he said.
The authorities wonder how the security of this place, which also houses the premises of various intelligence agencies, could have been defeated.
Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble of the mosque on Tuesday, the roof and a wall of which collapsed.
At the hospital, Wajahat Ali, a 23-year-old policeman, said he was trapped under the debris with the body of a dead man on top of him for seven hours. "I had lost all hope of surviving," he said.
Dozens of police officers have already been buried in honor guard ceremonies, their coffins lined up and girded with the Pakistani flag.
Analysts believe the TTP has been emboldened by the success of the Taliban. Pakistan accuses them of letting this group use Afghan soil to plan its attacks, which Kabul disputes.
"Terrorism has once again become a national security issue for Pakistan, like it was a decade ago, and it will get worse unless concerted action is taken to address it," said expert Madiha Afzal, of the Brookings Institution. .
The TTP denied being responsible for the attack. After its creation in 2007, it killed tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and members of the security forces, before being driven out of tribal areas by a military operation launched by the army in 2014.
Back in force in recent months, it wants to be less brutal than in the past and claims to only target the security forces and in no case places of worship.
But a local security official who requested anonymity told AFP that authorities were considering all eventualities, including the involvement of a splinter faction of the TTP, EI-K or a coordinated attack by several groups. .
"Often in the past, armed groups, including the TTP, have carried out attacks on mosques without claiming it, because a Sunni mosque is considered a sacred place," he said.
In Washington, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council said Tuesday that the United States "strongly condemns" the attack.
She called the attack "tragic and heartbreaking", adding: "terrorism is indefensible and it is unforgivable to target people attending a place of worship".
01/31/2023 21:30:48 - Peshawar (Pakistan) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
