PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) – A suicide bomber struck a Shiite Muslim mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar during Friday prayers, killing at least 56 worshipers and wounding 194 people, hospital officials said.
No extremist group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Both the Islamic State and the Pakistani Taliban, a separate group from the Taliban in Afghanistan, have carried out similar attacks in the past near the border with neighboring Afghanistan.
According to Asim Khan, a spokeswoman for Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, many of the injured are in critical condition. Dozens of victims were cut by shrapnel, several had their limbs amputated and others were injured by flying debris.
Peshawar police chief Mohammed Ejaz Khan said the violence began when an armed assailant opened fire on police outside a mosque in Peshawar’s old town. One police officer was killed in the shooting and another was wounded. The assailant then fled to the mosque and blew up his suicide vest.
The suicide bomber has attached a powerful explosive device packed with 5 kilograms (12 pounds) of explosives, said Moazam Ja Ansari, a senior police officer in Khyber Puhtunkhwa province, where Peshawar is the capital.
The device was hidden under a large black scarf that covered much of his body, according to CCTV footage seen by the Associated Press. The footage shows the bomber moving quickly up a narrow street to the entrance of the mosque. He fired on police guarding the mosque before entering.
Within seconds, a powerful explosion occurred and the camera lens was covered in dust and debris. Ansari said the crude device was crammed with ball bearings, a deadly method of constructing a bomb to inflict the most carnage, spraying a larger area with deadly shells. The ball camps caused the death toll, Ansari said.
Local police officer Wahid Khan said the blast occurred when worshipers gathered at the Kucha Risaldar mosque for Friday prayers. There are fears that the death toll could rise further, he added.
Ambulances rushed through the congested narrow streets, transporting the wounded to Lady Reading Hospital, where doctors were busy.
Witness Shayan Haider was preparing to enter the mosque when a powerful explosion threw him to the ground. “I opened my eyes and there was dust and bodies everywhere,” he said.
Chaos erupted in the emergency department of Lady Reading Hospital as doctors struggled to move the many wounded to operating rooms. Hundreds of relatives gathered in front of the emergency room, many of them sobbing and fighting in their chests, begging for information about their loved ones.
Outside the mosque, Shiites pushed through the cut-off streets. Kucha Risaldar Mosque is one of the oldest in the region, preceding the establishment of Pakistan in 1947 as a separate homeland for Muslims from the Indian subcontinent.
Allama prayer leader Irshad Hussein Khalil, a prominent young Shiite leader, was among those killed. Ambulance sirens sounded throughout the city.
Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack.
Retired army officer Sher Ali, who was at the mosque at the time of the blast, was wounded by flying shrapnel. He made a passionate request to the Pakistani government for better protection of the country’s Shiite minorities.
“What is our sin?” what we did? Aren’t we citizens of this country? ” He said from the emergency room, his white clothes spattered with blood.
In Sunni-majority Pakistan, minority Shiites have been the target of repeated attacks. In addition, the country has experienced a significant increase in violence in recent months, with dozens of soldiers killed in dozens of attacks on army posts on the border with Afghanistan.
Many attacks have been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, which analysts say were encouraged by the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan last August.
Pakistan has called on Afghanistan’s new rulers to extradite Pakistani Taliban extremists who staged their attacks on Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban have said their territory will not be used to attack anyone, but so far they have not betrayed any wanted Pakistani extremists.
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Gannon reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed of Islamabad contributed to the report.