Peshawar blast death toll rises to 95 as rescue operation ends - Al Jazeera English

The decease toll from Monday’s suicide bombing astatine a mosque successful the northwestern Pakistani metropolis of Peshawar has risen to 100, according to a aesculapian official, arsenic the South Asian state faces a mounting information situation from equipped groups.

“So far, 100 bodies person been brought to Lady Reading Hospital,” the spokesperson for the largest aesculapian installation successful the city, Mohammad Asim, said successful a connection connected Tuesday.

The immense bulk of those killed were constabulary officers, helium said.

Kashif Aftab Abbasi, elder superintendent of constabulary operations successful Peshawar, told Al Jazeera earlier successful the time that much than 225 radical were besides injured in the blast a time earlier.

The termination bombing caused the extortion of the mosque to collapse, and rescuers had to region mounds of debris to retrieve galore of the bodies, authorities said.

Reporting from Peshawar, Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said that the rescue cognition had mostly shifted to recovery.

“There has been a ceremonial send-off to those policemen who mislaid their lives, besides funerals taking spot crossed the province, due to the fact that these policemen came from respective districts – truthful determination is mourning crossed the province,” helium said.

The onslaught is the deadliest successful Peshawar successful a decennary and comes amid a surge successful unit against the police.

Meanwhile, questions person grown implicit however the attacker was capable to entree the heavy fortified area, which includes the office of the provincial constabulary unit and a counterterrorism department, portion wearing a termination vest.

That followed “credible quality reports” connected January 21 that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) planned a question of attacks successful Peshawar and the wider Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Hyder reported.

Shortly aft the explosion, Omar Mukaram Khorasani, the existent caput of the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a TTP splinter radical and a subordinate of the TTP’s enactment council, said his radical committed the onslaught successful retaliation for the sidesplitting past twelvemonth of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar erstwhile leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani successful Afghanistan, according to the Long War Journal and the South Asia Media Research Institute.

Khorasani “took work saying this was a revenge onslaught for the sidesplitting of his member successful Afghanistan, which helium blamed connected the Pakistani information forces,” Hyder said. “This is simply a splinter group, and they joined the mainstream TTP backmost successful 2020, truthful decidedly a radical wrong the TTP.”

Nevertheless, TTP spokesperson Mohammad Khorasani distanced the radical from the bombing, saying it was not its argumentation to people mosques, seminaries and spiritual places. He added that those taking portion successful specified acts could look punitive enactment nether TTP’s policy, but did not code Khorasani’s claims.

Ghulam Ali, the provincial politician successful the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said an probe was nether mode to find “how the violent entered the mosque”.

“Yes, it was a information lapse,” helium added.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited a infirmary successful Peshawar connected Monday and promised to instrumentality “stern action” against those down the attack.

“The sheer standard of the quality calamity is unimaginable. This is nary little than an onslaught connected Pakistan,” helium tweeted. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying their symptom “cannot beryllium described successful words”.

Pakistan has seen a surge successful attacks since November erstwhile the TTP ended a ceasefire with the government.

Rescuers hunt done the rubble of the mosque successful Peshawar, Pakistan [Abid Hussain/Al Jazeera]

In aboriginal January, the TTP claimed 1 of its members changeable and killed 2 quality officers, including the manager of the counterterrorism helping of the country’s military-based spy bureau Inter-Services Intelligence. Security officials said connected Monday the gunman successful that onslaught was traced and killed successful a shootout successful the northwest of the country, adjacent the Afghan border.

While a abstracted group, the TTP is simply a adjacent state of the Afghan Taliban.

The TTP has waged a 15-year equipped uprising against the Pakistani government, which included a 2014 onslaught by a faction of the radical connected an army-run schoolhouse successful Peshawar that killed 154 people, mostly children.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the latest bombing “particularly abhorrent” for targeting a spot of worship, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

The onslaught comes arsenic cash-strapped Pakistan continues to look a severe economical crisis. It has sought a important instalment of $1.1bn from the International Monetary Fund – portion of its $6bn bailout bundle – to debar default. However, talks with the IMF person stalled successful caller months.

Al Jazeera’s Abid Hussain contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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