Pakistan Blast: The attack on Monday ended the recent peaceful stretch in Peshawar, the capital of the volatile Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan. The region has experienced several assaults on law enforcement and military objectives in recent months, particularly in areas that lie along the Afghanistan border.
Through their despicable actions, terrorists want to spread fear & paranoia among the masses & reverse our hard-earned gains against terrorism & militancy. My message to all political forces is one of unity against anti-Pakistan elements. We can fight our political fights later.
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) January 31, 2023
TTP claim responsibility
These attacks have been claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. The Capital City Police Officer, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, stated that the majority of those killed were police officers.
Death toll rises to 100 in Pakistan Blast
Muhammad Asim Khan, a representative of Lady Reading Hospital in the city, stated that there have been at least 100 fatalities as a result of the bombing at a mosque in a police compound on Monday. The Inspector General of Peshawar Police, Moazim Jah Ansari, believes that a suicide bomber utilized 12 kilograms of explosives.
The senior superintendent of police operations in Peshawar, Kashif Aftab Abbasi, reported that over 225 people were injured.
Attack, an act of retaliation by the terror group
The mosque, which was located within a government security compound, suffered significant damage, and rescuers had to remove debris to reach the bodies.
The caretaker chief minister of the province, Azam Khan, has ordered a joint investigation team to immediately investigate the attack, which is the deadliest in Peshawar in a decade and came during a rise in violence against the police.
The attack was claimed by Omar Mukaram Khorasani, the head of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a TTP splinter group. The group stated that the attack was in retaliation for the killing of their former leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, in Afghanistan last year. Funerals for the victims are being held across the province.
TTP had attacked earlier also
Earlier in January, the TTP announced that one of its members assassinated two intelligence officers, including the director of the counterterrorism division of the military’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. On Monday, security officials reported that the shooter from that attack was located and eliminated in a gunfight in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border.
It’s worth noting that the TTP and the Afghan Taliban are closely linked but operate as separate groups. For the past 15 years, the TTP has been rebelling against the Pakistani government. This includes a 2014 attack by a TTP faction on a school run by the army in Peshawar, which resulted in the deaths of 154 people, mostly children. The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, deemed the recent bombing “particularly vile” for targeting a place of worship, according to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
