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At least 44 killed, 200 injured in suicide bombing at Pakistan political gathering
- Officials said initial investigations suggested Islamic State could be behind the attack, and officers were still investigating
- The explosion coincides with a visit to the country by a senior delegation of Chinese officials, including Vice-Premier He Lifeng, who arrived in the capital on Sunday
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A suicide bomber blew himself up at a political rally in a former stronghold of militants in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan on Sunday, killing at least 44 people and wounding nearly 200 in an attack that a senior leader said was meant to weaken Pakistani Islamists.
The Bajaur district near the Afghan border was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban – a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government – before the Pakistani army drove the militants out of the area. Supporters of hardline Pakistani cleric and political party leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema Islam generally supports regional Islamists, were meeting in Bajaur in a hall close to a market outside the district capital.
Party officials said Rehman was not at the rally but organisers added tents because so many supporters showed up, and party volunteers with batons were helping to control the crowd.
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Officials were announcing the arrival of Abdul Rasheed, a leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, when the bomb went off in one of Pakistan’s bloodiest attacks in recent years.
02:40
Dozens killed by suicide bombing at Pakistan political gathering
Dozens killed by suicide bombing at Pakistan political gathering
The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Islamabad, where he was expected to take part in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.
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