Islamabad, Pakistan
CNN
—
The demise toll from a suspected suicide bomb that ripped by means of a mosque in northwestern Pakistan Monday has risen to not less than 92, marking one of many deadliest assaults within the nation in years because it faces what one analyst described as “a national security crisis.”
Peshawar deputy commissioner Shafiullah Khan on Tuesday confirmed the fatalities and mentioned greater than 80 victims have been nonetheless being handled in hospital following the blast on the mosque in a police compound within the metropolis.
Nasarullah Khan, a police official who survived the explosion, mentioned he remembered seeing “a huge burst of flames” earlier than changing into surrounded by a plume of black mud.
Khan mentioned his foot broke within the blast and he was caught within the rubble for 3 hours.
“The ceiling fell in… the space in between the ceiling and wall is where I managed to survive,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, hope was fading within the seek for survivors as rescue staff sifted by means of the rubble of the mosque that was all however destroyed Monday, when worshipers – primarily legislation enforcement officers – had gathered for night prayers.
Images and video present partitions of the mosque diminished to fragments, with glass home windows and paneling destroyed within the highly effective blast.
“We are not expecting anyone alive to be found. Mostly dead bodies are being recovered,” Bilal Faizi, a rescue spokesperson, mentioned Tuesday.
The blast Monday is the newest signal of the deteriorating safety state of affairs in Peshawar, capital of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan and the location of frequent assaults by the Pakistani Taliban, referred to as Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP).
The TTP is a US-designated international terrorist group working in each Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Final 12 months, the breakdown of an already shaky year-long ceasefire between the TTP and Pakistan’s authorities threatened not solely escalating violence in that nation however doubtlessly a rise in cross-border tensions between the Afghan and Pakistani governments.
Initially on Monday, TTP officers Sarbakaf Mohmand and Omar Mukaram Khurasani had claimed the blast was “revenge” for the demise of TTP militant Khalid Khorasani final 12 months.
However the TTP’s important spokesperson later denied the group was concerned within the assault.
“Regarding the Peshawar incident, we consider it necessary to clarify that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has nothing to do with this incident,” TTP spokesperson Muhammad Khorasani mentioned in an announcement late Monday. “According to our laws and general constitution, any action in mosques, madrasas, funerals grounds and other sacred places is an offense.”
Pakistan authorities say an investigation is underway and haven’t confirmed both declare.
On Monday, Peshawar Police Chief Mohammad Aijaz Khan mentioned the blast contained in the Police Traces Mosque was “probably a suicide attack,” echoing an announcement from Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
“The brutal killing of Muslims prostrating before Allah is against the teachings of the Quran,” Sharif mentioned, including that “targeting the House of Allah is proof that the attackers have nothing to do with Islam.”
Rights teams have condemned the lethal assault, which has raised fears of recent violence amid a deteriorating safety state of affairs within the nation.
The Human Rights Fee of Pakistan in an announcement Monday mentioned the assault might have been averted if the “state heeded earlier warnings from civil society about extremist outfits in the province.”
“Ill-equipped law enforcement personnel continue to be targeted in incidents that dearly cost civilian and police lives. We demand the state take action now,” the assertion mentioned.
Madiha Afzal, a fellow in international coverage on the Brookings Establishment in Washington, mentioned the 2021 Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has “emboldened” the TTP and different terror teams.
“The TTP has also been emboldened by a Pakistani state that has had a shaky, uncertain response to the group in the last couple of years,” she mentioned, including a “sloppy policy toward terrorist groups has been more or less consistent across governments in Pakistan since the mid-2000s.”
Negotiations with the militants have “failed repeatedly because these groups are existentially opposed to the Pakistani state and constitution,” she added.
“This is now a national security crisis for Pakistan once again. The solution has to be a concerted military operation (against the TTP),” she mentioned. “But that is now complicated by the fact that the TTP can go across the border into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.”
The assault additionally comes at a fragile time for Pakistan, which has been grappling with a rising price of dwelling disaster as meals and gasoline shortages wreck havoc within the nation of 220 million.
Sharif’s authorities has struggled to revive the nation’s economic system, additional devastated by lethal floods final 12 months that killed greater than 1,000 individuals and submerged complete villages underwater.
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