At least two policemen were killed and 70 other people were injured Monday in a suicide bombing inside a mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, capital of Jiber Pakhtunkhwa province (north), according to security sources.
Sources quoted by the Pakistani television channel Geo TV have detailed that the suicide bomber had placed himself in the front row during a prayer that was taking place in the mosque before setting off the explosive charge he was carrying, without further details at the moment.
The explosion caused the collapse of part of the mosque’s roof, as reported by the Pakistani newspaper ‘Daily Jang’. Crews are still working at the site to transfer the victims to nearby hospitals. At the moment there is no claim of responsibility for the attack.
Pakistani security forces have in recent weeks stepped up their operations against Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban, after the armed group announced in late November the end of the ceasefire agreed with the Pakistani authorities amid contacts being mediated by the Afghan Taliban following their seizure of power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
The TTP group, which differs from the Afghan Taliban in organizational matters but follows the same rigorist interpretation of Sunni Islam, brings together more than a dozen Islamist militant groups operating in Pakistan, where they have killed some 70,000 people in two decades of violence.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
