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.
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