PESHAWAR, Pakistan. Pakistani police investigators said Saturday they have identified the suicide bomber and his network behind Friday’s deadly bombing of a Shia mosque in northwest Pakistan’s Peshawar that killed at least 63 people and injured about 200.
According to Muhammad Asim Khan, a spokesman for Peshawar’s largest hospital, Lady Reading, 37 people remain in hospitals, five are in critical condition.
The Islamic State’s regional affiliate, the Islamic State of Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was carried out by an Afghan suicide bomber identified by the militant group as Julaibid al-Kabuli.
Pakistani security officials said the name was a pseudonym and that they identified the assailant and his family. Mohammed Ali Saif, special assistant to the provincial chief minister, said at a press conference on Saturday that “the rest of the network will be revealed in the next 48 hours.” He declined to share more details, citing operational sensitivity.
Other security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case and the ongoing investigation, said the bomber was an Afghan national who had migrated to Pakistan decades ago and lived in the country with his family. Officials said the terrorist’s parents had informed police of their son’s disappearance and suspected that he had joined ISIS.
Investigators say the bomber was trained in Afghanistan and appears to have recently returned.
A senior Pakistani police official said police have made significant progress in their investigation, reviewing hours of CCTV footage and forensic evidence to identify the perpetrator’s network.
Friday’s explosion has made it harder for law enforcement, who are already confronting a resurgent Taliban in Pakistan. Balochi separatists in the country’s southwest have also carried out attacks in recent months.
Security officials say ISIS-K continues to operate from neighboring Afghanistan, but since the Afghan Taliban have been targeted, they have dispersed across the country, no longer operate in large groups or hold physical territory.
Officials monitoring the militant situation in Afghanistan say about 1,600 ISIS-K fighters fled when the Taliban took over the infamous Pul-i-Charkhi prison on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul shortly before taking it over in August.
Since then, the Taliban have either captured or killed nearly half of the escaped ISIS-K fighters, but many are still at large, including some Pakistanis, officials say.
Pakistan approached the new Taliban leadership in Kabul for information about the escaped militants, but was told that any prison records had been burned shortly before the Taliban took over the prison, according to a Pakistani security official.
In Peshawar, a shroud shrouded the old part of the city on Saturday as memorial prayers were held for several of the dead. Many families of the victims planned to bury their loved ones in Peshawar, others in their native Kurram tribal district on the border with Afghanistan.
Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar and Salman Massoud from Islamabad, Pakistan.