An explosion in Peshawar, during Friday prayers, caused hundreds of victims in a Shiite mosque. The police suspect a suicide attack by the local branch of the Islamic State.
An explosion in a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, in northwestern Pakistan, on Friday March 4 caused the death of at least 56 people and injured 196, reports CNN. It would be a suicide attack, but the investigation is ongoing, explains to the American media the chief of police of Peshawar.
For the moment, “this attack, the deadliest for the Shiite minority in Pakistan”, has not been claimed. She is long been the target of violence by Sunni Muslim Islamist terrorist groups, “including the Pakistani Taliban”.
Two terrorists with explosives
According to Pakistani intelligence officials, “the attack was most likely carried out by the branch of the Islamic State in the region, the Islamic State in Khorasan, or Daesh-K”, advance the New York Times.
Two assailants detonated the explosives they were carrying, according to Pakistani police, who found empty bullet cartridges and fragments of the weapons used.
The Islamic State in Khorasan, which emerged in 2015 in eastern Afghanistan, “was initially run by ex-members of the Pakistani Taliban”, recalls the American media. The group is notably responsible for the bomb attacks in two Shiite mosques in Afghanistan in the fall of 2021, which left dozens dead and injured.
The Taliban, who returned to power in Afghanistan last August, “launched a series of operations once morest the group, which may have prompted its fighters to move their operations to Pakistan”according to Pakistani intelligence.
