At least 56 people were killed and about 200 wounded in a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque moments before the start of Friday prayers in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, and was claimed by the Islamic State, and this attack is considered the deadliest in the country since 2018.
The explosion occurred in the Kucha Risaldar district of Peshawar, and destroyed the mosque from the inside, while smashed glass was scattered in the streets.
A spokesman for the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, Muhammad Asim Khan, said the death toll had reached 56, the deadliest attack since an explosion in July 2018 claimed by a local branch of the Islamic State.
And the ISIS-affiliated Amaq Agency said - in a statement - that an element of the organization "stormed a Shiite mosque in the city (Peshawar) in northwestern Pakistan, after shooting two members of the Pakistani police who were guarding the mosque, killing one and wounding the other ... and detonated a powerful explosive belt. explosion."
Peshawar - located only 50 km from the border with Afghanistan - has been the target of attacks since the beginning of the last decade, but the security situation has improved greatly in recent years.
The United Nations, Turkey and Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan, condemned the bombing of a mosque in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan.
The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned in the strongest terms the bombing, affirming its support for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in the face of terrorism.