Nearly 70 worshippers have been killed in the suicide bombing at a mosque in Darra Adam Khel in the Kohat area of Khyber-Pukhtoonkhwa on Friday afternoon. The teenaged bomber struck during Friday noon prayers — the busiest hour in any mosque.
The blast has been billed as the deadliest in two months, destroying the mosque located just a kilometre away from a big security camp. In fact, many of the dead were killed as the roof of the mosque caved in on the congregation that was leaving the premises after Friday prayers.
Police fear that the actual death toll could be higher because many of the injured were ferried to various hospitals by their relatives as the health services of the district were stretched beyond capacity by the massive explosion.
Later in the evening, terrorists struck at another mosque near Peshawar. The terrorists attacked the mosque with grenades during Isha (night) prayers, killing three people and injuring 17 others. Rescue operations were hindered by a power failure at the time.
TTP denies link
The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has denied any link with the two blasts and has, instead, blamed foreign agents fighting security forces in the tribal areas for the two attacks. The TTP is also reported to have warned journalists of stern action if they levelled baseless charges.
Police suspect the Darra Adam Khel blast to be the handiwork of a local militant group retaliating against a lashkar (a fighting unit of natives) raised by security forces in the area to complement government efforts to weed out extremism.
