Suicide bombing at mosque, 31 people died

City officials said on February 6 that the bombing occurred at the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque in the Tarlai area, on the outskirts of Islamabad.

“The attacker was stopped at the gate and committed suicide with a bomb,” a security source revealed.

A senior police official said the blast occurred after Friday prayers, a time when mosques across Pakistan are packed with worshipers. The number of casualties is expected to increase.

Devotee Muhammad Kazim, 52, said the powerful explosion shook the building as soon as the prayer service began. “We heard gunshots during the first prayer of Namaz,” he said. “And while we were still in a crouched position, the explosion rang out.”

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pledged to bring those behind the incident to light.

South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said the target of the attack suggested the perpetrators could be local branches of the Islamic State (IS) or anti-Shiite fighters.

It was the deadliest attack in the Pakistani capital since September 2008, when 60 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb that destroyed part of the five-star Marriott hotel.

Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar called the bombing a “heinous crime against humanity” and a “flagrant violation of Islamic principles”. “Pakistan is united in fighting terrorism in all forms,” ​​he wrote on X.

The attack occurred in the context that Pakistani security forces are having to deal with an increasing number of riots in the southern and northern provinces bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan is a majority-Sunni Muslim country, but Shiites also make up about 10-15% of the population.

The most recent major attack in Islamabad occurred last November, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a courthouse, killing 12 people and injuring dozens.