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Pakistan mosque bombing kills 2, hurts 70

By AAP Newswire

Jan 30, 2023

Police and ambulances after the bombing in Peshawar, Pakistan — Authorities rushed to get the wounded to hospital following the blast in Peshawar. -AP

A powerful bomb has gone off near a mosque and police offices in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least two people and wounding some 70 worshippers.

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No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing on Monday in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Police officer Zafar Khan said rescuers were trying to get the wounded to a nearby hospital.

He said it appeared to have been a suicide bombing.

Khan said several of the wounded were listed in critical condition in hospital.Â Most of the victims were police officers, officials said.

Suspicion in such attacks falls most often on the Pakistani Taliban, who have in the past claimed similar bombings.

The Pakistani Taliban, are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and are separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members in custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country's former tribal regions.

By AAP Newswire

Australian Associated Press