At least 43 killed in blast in Pakistan
200 are hurt; violence is latest unrest in nation
An explosion at a political rally on Sunday in northwest Pakistan killed at least 43 people and wounded 200 more, officials said, the latest sign of the deteriorating security situation in the country, where some militant groups have become more active over the past two years since finding a haven in neighboring Afghanistan under the Taliban administration there.
The blast occurred at about 4 p.m. in Bajaur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, said Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister. It targeted a political rally organized by Jamiat Ulema-eIslam-Fazl, an Islamist party that is part of the governing coalition in Pakistan.
A video from the rally recorded before the explosion shows hundreds of men sitting outside beneath a cloth canopy as party officials addressed the crowd. As one district leader took the stage, enthusiastic party workers stood up, chanting, “Allah is great,” according to one rallygoer, Sharifullah Mamond, 19. Then an explosion rocked the crowd.
“I lost consciousness for a few minutes because of the power of the explosion,” Mamond said in a telephone interview from a hospital in Bajaur where he was being treated for minor injuries.
Provincial police Chief Akhtar Hayat Khan told the local news media that the explosion was set off by a suicide bomber. Initial evidence suggests that the bomber appeared to have been near the stage when he detonated the explosives, according to an intelligence officer in Bajaur who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The death toll was expected to rise, officials said, and a rescue operation to recover the wounded was underway on Sunday evening. “The government is trying to shift critical patients to Peshawar and other hospitals through helicopters,” Jamal said. A state of emergency was imposed in the hospitals in Peshawar, the provincial capital.
Among those killed was Maulana Ziaullah, a local leader of the political party who was onstage when the explosion occurred. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Officials said they suspected it might have been orchestrated by an Islamic State group affiliate in the region that is active in northwest Pakistan.
The group has previously targeted members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl because of the close relationships the party’s local leaders maintain with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, experts say.
The Islamic State group affiliate, known as the Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, has attacked the Taliban administration for not instituting what it considers a strict enough interpretation of Islamic principles in Afghanistan. In April 2022, the group renewed calls for the assassinations of religious scholars and activists associated with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl in Pakistan.
That is part of ISIS-K’s “broader strategy to eliminate religious scholars from rival sects and religious parties,” said Riccardo Valle, director of research at The Khorasan Diary, an Islamabad-based news and research platform focusing on jihadist networks.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head of Jamiat Ulema-e-IslamFazl, expressed sorrow and regret over the explosion in a statement published by the party’s media wing. Rehman called on Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to thoroughly investigate the explosion.
The blast was the latest attack to rattle Pakistan, where militant groups — including the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, and ISIS-K — have become more active in recent years. This year, the TTP has carried out several major attacks that have jolted Pakistanis’ tenuous sense of security. In January, TTP militants attacked a mosque in Peshawar, killing more than 100 people, and one month later they waged an hours-long assault on the police headquarters of Karachi.
The attack Sunday “is yet another reminder that militancy remains ascendant in Pakistan, and insecurity is likely to rise in the coming months,” said Asfandyar Mir, a specialist at the United States Institute of Peace.