Pakistan: deadly explosion in a mosque in Peshawar
The prayer room of this Peshawar mosque where the faithful were was blown up by an explosion on Friday March 4, 2022. REUTERS - FAYAZ AZIZ
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A loud explosion at a chitte mosque in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, during Friday prayers, left at least 30 people dead and dozens injured.
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The explosion occurred a few minutes before the start of prayers on Friday March 4.
The mosque, frequented by Shiites, is located on a narrow street in the Kocha Risaldar district, near the historic Qissa Khwani bazaar.
“
I was just outside the mosque when I saw a man shoot two policemen before entering the mosque.
A few seconds later, I heard a big bang
,” witness Zahid Khan told AFP.
Other testimonies point in the same direction.
Muhammad Asim Khan, spokesman for Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar confirmed the death of at least 30 people and 56 others injured.
The AFP reporter saw dismembered bodies at the scene.
Pakistani Taliban reinvigorated
Located about fifty kilometers from the border with Afghanistan, the city had been ravaged by almost daily attacks during the first half of the 2010s, but security had greatly improved there in recent years.
But for a few weeks, the country has been confronted with the return in force of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, galvanized by the coming to power of the Taliban in August in Afghanistan.
This movement, distinct from that of the new Afghan leaders but which shares common roots with it, has claimed responsibility for several attacks since the beginning of the year, including one against a police checkpoint in Islamabad, during which a policeman was killed and two injured.
Shiites in Pakistan have also in the past been targeted by the Islamic State group.
Its regional branch, the Islamic State-Khorasan (EI-K), has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks in the country in recent years, such as the assassination in early 2021 of ten Hazara minors, an ethnic Shiite group, in the province of Balochistan. .
(
with
AFP
)
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