An affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide bombing inside a Syiah mosque on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital that killed 31 people and wounded 169 others, as mourners gathered under tight security at the same mosque for funerals for the victims.
The regional Islamic State affiliate, known as Islamic State in Pakistan, has claimed responsibility in a statement posted on its Amaq News Agency.
It said the attacker opened fire on security guards who tried to stop him at the main gate and detonated his explosive vest after reaching the mosque’s inner gate.
Friday’s mosque bombing was the deadliest in Islamabad since a 2008 suicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel that killed 63 people and wounded more than 250.
In November, a suicide bomber struck outside a court in the capital, killing 12 people.
The latest attack comes as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government has had to deal with a surge in attacks across Pakistan.
According to Pakistani authorities, the attacker was a Pakistani national who had recently travelled to Afghanistan.
Authorities said several suspects, including the brother, mother and other relatives of the bomber, were arrested during overnight raids in Islamabad and northwestern Pakistan, and that a police officer was killed in the operation.
More than 2,000 grief-stricken mourners gathered yesterday as coffins of those killed were brought to the mosque for funerals.
Senior government officials and leaders of the Syiah community were among those who attended the funerals for about a dozen victims. Funerals of other victims were to be held in their hometowns.
IS is a Sunni group that has targeted Pakistan’s Syiah minority in the past, apparently seeking to stoke sectarian divisions in the majority Sunni country.
In 2022, it claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that struck a Syiah Muslim mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 56 and wounding 194.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif told reporters on Friday that the attack signalled that Pakistan-based fighters operating from Afghanistan could strike even in the capital.
His remarks drew a sharp response from Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
In a statement, Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry condemned the mosque attack in Islamabad but said the Pakistani defence minister had “irresponsibly” linked it to Afghanistan.
Pakistan has frequently accused Afghanistan, where the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, of harbouring fighters, including members of the Pakistani Taliban.
Kabul denies the accusations.
The attack also drew condemnation from the international community, including the United States, Russia and the European Union.
Prime Minister Shehbaz said yesterday he was grateful for the messages of sympathy and support received “from across the globe” following what he called a “heart-wrenching suicide attack in Islamabad”.
He said international support remained critical to Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts and vowed the perpetrators would be brought to justice.
Although Pakistan’s capital has seen relatively few attacks compared with other regions, the country has experienced a recent rise in violence.
Much of it has been blamed on Baloch separatist groups and the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, which is a separate group but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban. — AP
