Mosque suicide bomber disguised himself as police officer

I admit that it was a security lapse and I take responsibility for it. Police Chief Moazzam Jah Ansari

A suicide bomber who killed 101 people this week at a mosque in northwestern Pakistan had disguised himself in police uniform and did not raise suspicion among the guards, say police.

The bomber arrived pushing a motorcycle at the mosque, inside a high-security police and government compound in the city of Peshawar, said police chief, Moazzam Jah

Ansari. The bomber wore a police uniform and the guards at the site assumed he was a police officer and did not search him.

Police have identified the bomber, the police chief also said, and are close to arresting suspects who helped him carry out Monday’s bombing, one of the deadliest in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“We will avenge the martyrdom of each and every policeman,” Ansari said yesterday. He pledged that all those responsible for the attack, including the mastermind and facilitators, will be arrested and punished under the law.

Pakistan’s defence and interior ministers in speeches to Parliament this week blamed the Pakistani Taliban, who maintain sanctuaries in neighbouring Afghanistan, for orchestrating the bombing. The Pakistani Taliban, known by their acronym TTP, are a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban.

Ansari said that most of the casualties — the explosion also left 225 wounded — were not caused by the detonation of the bomber’s explosives but by the collapse of the roof of the 50-year-old Peshawar mosque. The blast caused the roof, which was supported by outside walls but no pillars, to cave in.

Police also released CCTV footage showing the suspected bomber, in police uniform, approaching the compound pushing a motorcycle, giving the impression it had broken down. “I admit that it was a security lapse and I take responsibility for it,” Ansari said.