A suicide bomber attacked a funeral attended by anti-Taliban militiamen in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 37 mourners and wounding more than 100 others, police and hospital officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault.
The blast took place near Peshawar and not far from the tribally administered regions that border Afghanistan where militants are at their strongest.
Photo: AFP
The area struck is home to several tribal armies that battle the Taliban and are encouraged to do so by the government.
Police officer Zahid Khan said around 300 people were attending the funeral for the wife of a militiaman in the Matani area, Hakeem Khan, when the bomber struck.
Hakeem Khan was instrumental in raising a militia force, known as a lashkar, with the support of the government to fight militants.
Bloodied shoes and caps littered the ground where the attack took place television images showed, as stunned survivors milled around or bundled the wounded into trucks and away to hospital.
Later TV footage showed men searching for sandals and caps belonging to friends and relatives.
Witnesses said the bomber, who appeared to be in his late teens, showed up at the funeral just as it was about to begin.
“We thought this youth was coming to attend the funeral, but he suddenly detonated a bomb,” survivor Syed Alam Khan said.
Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said the insurgents targeted the militiamen because they were allied with the Pakistani government and, effectively, the US.
“These lashkar are raised to create chaos instead of maintaining peace,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“The lashkar and the army are fighting us at the behest of the Americans,” he said. “We will carry out more such attacks if they did not stop their activities.”
Militia commander Dilawar Khan said he would consult his fighters and local elders about whether to keep battling the Taliban, insisting that the government did not provide them with the resources they need.
Another witness, Farman Ullah, complained that there was no police security in place for the funeral.
“It was the duty of the government to provide us security, but it did not do it,” he said.
“It was like doomsday ... There were dead and injured lying all around,” said resident Anwar Khan, who went to help after the blast.
Jamal Shah, a doctor at the main hospital in Peshawar, said it had received at least 36 bodies and more than 100 wounded in the blast.
Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants are waging a bloody war against the Pakistani state from their bases in the northwest. The army has launched several offensives against the militants, but has also encouraged the formation of private armies to help out in the fight.
While the ceding of authority to armed civilians has alarmed human rights groups, the state has praised the role of the militias in battling the militants or holding ground retaken from them.
Peshawar police said late last year that the armies in Matani were key to stopping militant infiltration into the city.
The militiamen operate from heavily fortified compounds in the region, and have seen their influence rise. But commanders have complained they were not getting enough government help, though they claimed to have wrested Matani from militant control.
The army says it is winning the war against militants, but bombings still regularly occur in much of the country.
The attack on the funeral came a day after militants set off a car-bomb at a natural gas filling station in the central city of Faisalabad, killing 25 people and wounding about 125. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed responsibility for that attack.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS