Bomb at Kohat mosque near police offices kills 7, injures over 30
A bomb exploded at a mosque near police offices in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 30, most of them worshippers.
A powerful bomb went off on Friday at a mosque located close to a building that houses police offices in northwestern Pakistan, leaving at least seven people dead and more than 30 wounded, according to police and rescue officials.
The explosion took place in Kohat, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that shares a border with Afghanistan, said Bilal Faizi, a senior rescue official. Most of those hurt were worshippers, he added.
Casualties were rushed to a nearby hospital, where authorities declared an emergency to cope with the sudden flow of patients. Local police said the blast was strong enough to cause heavy damage to shops and homes in the vicinity.
Videos circulating on social media showed that the mosque's roof had caved in. Rescuers and local residents were seen pulling injured people from the debris and moving them to ambulances.
No organisation had immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. Suspicion is nevertheless expected to centre on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
The TTP has intensified attacks on police personnel and civilians in recent years. In 2023, a suicide bombing inside a mosque in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed 101 people.
The TTP is a separate outfit allied with Afghanistan's Taliban, which regained power in 2021. Islamabad has frequently accused Kabul of giving shelter to the TTP and ignoring cross-border militant strikes, allegations that the Afghan government has rejected.