Funerals Held After Vehicle Bombing at Kohat Mosque Kills 21
A vehicle bomb struck a mosque near police offices in Kohat, Pakistan, killing at least 21 people and wounding 80 in an attack that also involved gunmen storming the compound.
Funeral rites were held in Kohat, a district in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, for the victims of a vehicle bombing at a mosque located near police offices, as civil and police officials laid wreaths on the coffins and joined prayers for the dead.
The attack on Friday killed at least 21 people and wounded 80 others, according to police and rescue officials. Most of those killed were police officers, hospital officials said, and many of the dead and wounded had been attending prayers at the mosque when the blast occurred.
Zulfiqar Hameed, the provincial police chief, said an attacker appeared to have rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the mosque. At least seven armed gunmen then tried to enter the police compound and exchanged fire with officers. Six of the gunmen were killed, and police said a suicide bomber struck the nearby office of an intelligence agency.
The compound housed counter-terrorism police who had conducted operations against militants across the province in recent years.
Bilal Faizi, a senior rescue official, said most of the casualties were worshippers at the mosque.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed sorrow over the loss of life, directing authorities to speed up rescue operations.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The assault was the latest in a surge of militant violence near the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistani Taliban militants have increasingly targeted police and other security forces as the government intensifies operations against them.