Karachi, Pakistan -- In one of Pakistan's deadliest attacks in recent years, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a packed mosque Friday, killing at least 50 worshipers and injuring more than 100 in PakistanÂ’s tribal belt of Khyber.
| Good thing it's Ramadan. Who knows how bad it would be in Pakistain if it wasn't a religious holiday in which killing Muslims is forbidden... |
Around 400 tribesmen were at the main Madina Mosque in Jamrod performing Friday prayers when the bomber detonated his bomb. The explosion caused the roof of the mosque to collapse, burying many of the worshipers.
“I was offering prayers when the blast hit us. I fell unconscious and when regained consciousness I could only see clouds of smoke, dead and injured around me," says Hashmat Ullah Kooki Khel, a witness the Monitor reached by phone.
Most of the victims belong to THE Kookikhel tribe
| best shortened as the 'Kooks'... |
that is largely considered to pro-government and anti-Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban has not claimed responsibility but officials have blamed the terrorists militants for the bombing.
| They're a convenient scapegoat at any rate... |
“This is [a] cowardly attack by Taliban and the attackers cannot be Muslims to kill innocent worshipers in the holy month of Ramadan,” Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa province, told reporters.
| Funny, the 'attackers' say the same thing about you. Oh, Allan must surely be perplexed as both sides of the faithful appeal in his name... |
“They are weakened and the operations by security forces have broken their backbone, so it could be [a] revenge tactic,” Mr. Hussain said.
The Khyber region is known as being a hotbed of militants from Ansar-ul-Islam and Lashkar-e-Islam. Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam) is headed by militant commander Manghal Bagh, while its rival Ansar-ul-Islam operates under Qazi Mohib. Both groups are fighting against Pakistani forces in Khyber. |