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Suicide bomb in mosque kills 50
Publish Date: Friday,27 March, 2009, at 11:21 PM Doha Time
Tribesmen search for victims amidst the debris at the site of a suicide
blast at a mosque in the town of Jamrud
Tribesmen search for victims amidst the debris at the site of a suicide blast
at a mosque in the town of Jamrud yesterday. A suicide bomber blew himself up
during Friday prayers at a packed Pakistani mosque, leaving more than 50 dead
and scores wounded in one of the bloodiest recent attacks in the nation.
Blood-soaked caps, shoes and shirts lay around the flattened mosque, where
dazed survivors looked on as rescue workers plucked bodies out of the rubble,
splashed with pools of blood.
It came just hours before US President Barack Obama was to announce a new
offensive against terror havens in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan, in
the hope of dealing a fatal blow to Al Qaeda more than seven years after the
September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.
The bomb on the weekly Muslim day of rest went off in Jamrud, a town in the
restive northwest Khyber tribal region that is located on a key road used to
ferry supplies to Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.
"More than 50 people were killed and over 100 others were wounded in the
attack. Twenty five of the wounded are in a critical condition," Fida Mohammed
Bangash, a senior administration official in Khyber, told AFP at the scene.
Only two minarets were left intact at the mosque, which is frequented by tribal
police and paramilitary officers fighting against the Taliban and other
Islamist militants in Khyber.
"The whole of the mosque collapsed and only two pillars remain. People were
crying," said Waheed Khan, a tribal policeman who was on guard duty across the
road at the time.
"I haven't seen such devastation in my life," he told AFP.
"At the same time that the imam said 'Alluh Akhbar (God is greater), the
suicide bomber exploded. It was a huge explosion. Even the vehicles standing
outside the mosque were damaged."
Tariq Hayat, the top official in the semi-autonomous tribal district, had
earlier put the death toll at 48 but warned that many others could be still be
trapped under the rubble after the roof of the mosque caved in. "More than 70
people were wounded. There may be many more dead," he said.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani "strongly
condemned the suicide attack" and vowed the perpetrators would be brought to
justice, according to separate government statements. There was no immediate
claim of responsibility for the attack. It was the deadliest bombing in
Pakistan, a frontline state in the US-led "war on terror", since 60 people died
in a suicide truck bomb at the five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad last
September.
US officials say northwest Pakistan has degenerated into a safe haven for Al
Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion of
late 2001 and have since regrouped to launch attacks on foreign troops in that
country.
Pakistani security officials said that they suspected bombing was to avenge
operations against Taliban fighters and other Islamist militants to secure Nato
supplies into Afghanistan. The bulk of supplies and equipment required by Nato
and US-led forces who are battling a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is
shipped through Pakistan, and the fabled Khyber pass is the principal land
route.
Extremists opposed to the Pakistani government's decision to side with the
United States in its "war on terror" have carried out a series of bombings and
other attacks that have killed more than 1,600 people in less than two years.
AFP
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