Terror

A suicide bombing at the time of Friday prayers in a crowded mosque in northwestern Pakistan kills at least 50 dead and 75 injured, authorities reported.

Police, officials of local authorities and officers of the army were among the crowd, estimated at between 250 and 300 people when the bomb exploded in the mosque, near the town of Jamrud, a thirty kilometers from the Afghan border.

The attack occurred hours before U.S. President Barack Obama will have to formally present the new strategy of Washington in Afghanistan, which, according to U.S. officials, is expected to present Pakistan as an integral part of the ongoing conflict.

The suicide bomber has driven his explosives when an imam to lead prayers, began a religious service.

“As the Imam said Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), the explosion took place,” said one witness.

“It was a suicide attack. The suicide bomber was in the mosque. It was a two-storey building and it collapsed,” said Tariq Hayat Khan, Chief of the Khyber region.

The mosque stood near the road leading to the Khyber pass and the Afghan border which is just beyond. Islamist activists in the region in recent months intensified their operations against security forces and had, according to residents, recently threatened to target a police station adjacent to the mosque.

“It is surprising that those who claim to fight for jihad conduct suicide bombings in mosques during Friday prayers,” said Khan in the television channel Geo TV.

Since mid-2007, much of the violence in Pakistan are estimated, committed by armed Islamists based in the Pashtun tribal regions on the Afghan border. The road to the Khyber pass has been regularly attacked and convoys of trucks bringing equipment and food to foreign troops in Afghanistan have been targeted and burnt.

Thursday, a suicide bomber killed nine people in a restaurant frequented by Islamists opposed to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the South Waziristan in the south-west of the Khyber pass.

Filed by Premium Blogger at 11:39 pm under Suicide bomber in a Mosque in Pakistan, Terrorism News  Tagged Mosque, Pakistan, Suicide Attack, Suicide Bomber, terror, Terrorism
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