Peshawar mosque bombing was ‘revenge against police’

A suicide blast at a mosque inside a Pakistan police headquarters was a targeted revenge attack, a police chief said on Tuesday, as rescue efforts ended with the death toll standing at 100.

Between 300 and 400 policemen had gathered for afternoon prayers at the compound’s mosque on Monday in the provincial capital Peshawar when an entire wall and most of the roof were blown out, showering rubble on officers.

“We are on the frontline taking action against militants and that is why we were targeted,” city police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan said. “The purpose was to demoralise us as a force.”

On Tuesday evening rescuers finally ended a marathon operation which saw them pry survivors and corpses out of the wreck of the mosque, rushing those who could be saved to hospitals.

Low-level militancy, often targeting security checkpoints, has been rising in the areas near Peshawar that border Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021.

The head of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province police force, Moazzam Jah Ansari, told reporters that a suicide bomber had entered the mosque as a guest, carrying 10-12 kilogrammes of “explosive material in bits and pieces”.

He added that a militant group that was on-and-off affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban could be behind the attack. The Pakistani Taliban (separate from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar Islamist ideology) denied it was responsible.

Interior minister Rana Sanaullah told Pakistan’s national assembly the dead included 97 police and three civilians, with 27 patients still in critical condition. Authorities are investigating how a major security breach could happen in one of the most tightly controlled areas of the city.

“Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who defend Pakistan,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.