Pakistan suicide blast on religious procession kills at least 52, injures dozens
- Police in Balochistan province said the attack took place near a mosque where people were gathering to mark Prophet Mohammad’s birthday
- ‘A procession of hundreds of people came out of the Madina mosque and as it reached Al Falah road a suicide bomber targeted it’
A suspected suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 52 people and wounding nearly 70 others, authorities said, in one of the country’s deadliest attacks targeting civilians in months.
An open area near a mosque was left strewn with the shoes of the dead and wounded, TV footage and videos on social media showed. Bodies lay covered with bedsheets. Residents and rescuers were seen rushing the wounded to hospitals.
The attack happened in Balochistan province, while a second suicide attack at a mosque hundreds of kilometres north in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province killed at least five people. No one has claimed responsibility.
There has been a surge in attacks claimed by militant groups, raising the stakes for security forces ahead of national elections scheduled for January, amid a political crisis and a crippled economy.
The Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan – made up of various hardline Sunni Islamist groups – has often targeted the military and government since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, but denied it carried out either of Friday’s attacks.
It has repeatedly said it does not target places of worship or civilians.