A suicide bombing on Monday that struck inside a mosque at a police and government compound in northwest Pakistan reflects “security lapses,” officials said as the death toll from the devastating blast climbed to 100 yesterday.
The blast, which ripped through a Sunni mosque inside a major police facility in the city of Peshawar, was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent years. It left as many as 225 wounded, some still in serious condition in hospital, Peshawar senior police officer Kashif Aftab Abbasi said.
More than 300 worshipers were praying in the mosque, with more approaching, when the bomber set off his explosives vest on Monday morning, officials said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The explosion blew off part of the roof, and what was left soon caved in, injuring many more, police officer Zafar Khan said.
Rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to reach worshipers still trapped under the rubble.
More bodies were retrieved overnight and early yesterday, said Mohammad Asim, a government hospital spokesman in Peshawar, and several of those critically injured died.
Bilal Faizi, the chief rescue official, said rescue teams were still working at the site yesterday as more people were believed to be trapped inside.
Counterterrorism police are investigating how the bomber was able to reach the mosque, which is in a walled compound, inside a high-security zone with other government buildings.
“Yes, it was a security lapse,” said Ghulam Ali, the provincial governor in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited a hospital in Peshawar after the bombing and vowed “stern action” against those behind the attack.
“The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is no less than an attack on Pakistan,” he wrote on Twitter.
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