Families search for loved ones after Pakistan mosque blast kills 100 - Reuters

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Distraught relatives thronged hospitals successful Pakistan's Peshawar connected Tuesday to look for their kin a time aft a termination bombing ripped done a crowded mosque successful a heavy fortified country of the city, sidesplitting 100 people, mostly policemen.

The attack, successful the Police Lines district, was the deadliest successful a decennary to deed this restive, northwestern city adjacent the Afghan borderline and comes amid a surge successful unit against the police. No radical has claimed responsibility.

"My son, my child," cried an aged pistillate walking alongside an ambulance carrying coffins, arsenic rescue workers stretchered wounded radical to a infirmary exigency unit.

At slightest 170 radical were wounded successful the blast, which demolished the precocious storey of the mosque arsenic hundreds of worshippers performed noon prayers.

Riaz Mahsud, a elder section authorities official, said the casualty toll was apt to emergence arsenic workers searched done the debris conscionable implicit 24 hours later.

"So far, 100 bodies person been brought to Lady Reading Hospital," spokesperson for the largest aesculapian installation successful the city, Mohammad Asim, said successful a statement.

Authorities accidental they bash not cognize however the bomber managed to breach the subject and constabulary checkpoints starring into the Police Lines district, a colonial-era, self-contained encampment successful the metropolis centre that is location to middle- and lower-ranking constabulary unit and their families.

Given the information concerns successful Peshawar, the mosque was precocious built to let constabulary to commune without leaving the area. Defence curate Khawaja Asif said the bomber was successful the archetypal enactment successful the supplication hallway erstwhile helium struck.

The onslaught is the deadliest successful Peshawar since duplicate termination bombings astatine All Saints Church killed scores of worshippers successful September 2013, successful what is the deadliest onslaught connected Pakistan's Christian minority.

Peshawar sits connected the borderline of the Pashtun tribal lands, a portion mired successful unit for the past 2 decades. The astir progressive militant radical successful the country is the Pakistani Taliban, besides called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella radical for Sunni and sectarian Islamist factions opposed to the authorities successful Islamabad.

The TTP denied work for Monday's bombing, though it has stepped up attacks since withdrawing from a bid woody with the authorities past year.

The bombing took spot a time earlier an International Monetary Fund (IMF) ngo arrives successful Islamabad for talks connected a stalled $7 cardinal bailout.

Reporting by Jibran Ahmad successful Peshawar, Writing by Asif Shahzad and Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Sudipto Ganguly, Miral Fahmy, Simon Cameron-Moore, Nick Macfie, William Maclean

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