LANDI KOTAL – A suicide bomber killed 37 people when he blew himself up in a crowded Pakistani mosque near the Afghan border yesterday.
Police, paramilitary forces and government officials were among the congregation in the mosque near Jamrud town, about 30km (20 miles) from the Afghan border, when the attack happened.
The bomber set off his explosives as an imam, or prayer leader, began the service.
“The moment the imam said ‘Allahu Akbar [God is Greatest]’, the blast went off,” said Tauseer Khan (70), from a hospital bed in the nearby city of Peshawar.
Rahat Gul, a spokesman for the Khyber administration, had earlier said 50 people had been killed and 75 wounded, but Tariq Hayat Khan, Khyber’s top government administrator, later revised the death toll to 37.
Among the dead were 14 policemen and paramilitary soldiers, while 160 were wounded, Mr Khan said. Between 250 and 300 people were in the mosque at the time of the blast.
“The attacker was seen jumping into the courtyard of the mosque and blowing himself up,” said Mr Khan.
The two-storey building collapsed. Worshippers and rescuers searched through piles of bricks, pulling out bodies and carrying them to ambulances. Police caps, prayer caps, beads and mobile phones were later lined up on a wall outside the mosque. Rows of abandoned shoes were nearby.
Police initially said a bomb blew up at a police post next to the mosque, which is by the main road leading to the Khyber Pass and the Afghan border beyond.
Pakistani Taliban militants last year stepped up attacks on supplies going through the pass and bound for western forces in landlocked Afghanistan.
Since mid-2007, much of the violence in Pakistan is believed to have been carried out by militants based in lawless ethnic Pashtun lands on the Afghan border.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have also sharply escalated their attacks, often operating from the same strongholds in Pakistan.
US president Barack Obama’s new strategy for the Afghan war will aim to disrupt, dismantle and eventually destroy militant sanctuaries in Pakistan, and prevent militants from establishing safe havens in Afghanistan.
“It’s surprising; those who claim that they are doing jihad [Muslim holy war] and then carry out suicide attacks inside mosques during Friday prayers,” said Mr Khan. “They are infidels. They are enemies of Pakistan. They are enemies of Islam.”
On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed nine at a restaurant in the South Waziristan region, southwest of Khyber. – (Reuters)