Suicide Bomber Kills Over 30 in Shi'ite mosque in Pakistan's Capital

Reuters

] Pakistani paramilitary federal forces stand guard next to a crowd of people gathered near the site of a deadly explosion at a Shi'ite Muslim mosque.

A suicide bomber killed at least 31 people and wounded almost 170 others during Friday prayers in a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Pakistan's capital Islamabad, police and government officials said.

Images from the site showed bloodied bodies lying on the carpeted mosque floor surrounded by shards of glass, debris and panicked worshippers.

Bombings are rare in the heavily guarded capital, although Pakistan has been hit by a rising wave of militancy in the past few years.

"The death toll in the blast has risen. A total of 31 people have lost their lives. The number of wounded brought to hospitals has risen to 169," Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Irfan Memon said in a statement.

A suicide attack at a mosque in Pakistan's capital city Islamabad killed at least 30 people and wounded more than 130 on Friday, a police source told AFP.

The police source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the toll was "expected to rise further".

Two police officials said the attacker was stopped at the gate of the mosque before detonating the bomb. They asked not to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Shiites, who are in the minority in the predominantly Sunni Muslim nation of 241 million, have been targeted in sectarian violence in ‍the past, including by the Sunni Islamist militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which ‌considers them heretics.

A suicide bombing on November 11 killed 12 people in Islamabad and wounded 27 others in an attack Pakistan said was carried out by an Afghan national. No group claimed responsibility for that attack.

An AFP photographer outside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital saw dozens of wounded people arriving.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the blast, expressing "deep grief" for the explosion.

Sources: FRANCE 24, AFP, Reuters



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