Pakistan death toll soars above 100
Twin bombing becomes country’s worst attack of 2010 after more victims found in debris.
“There were two blasts. The first one was small but the second was a big one,” Khan said.
Critical condition
Mairaj Mohammad, another local official, confirmed the latest toll and said there were 98 people receiving treatment in different hospitals.
“Some of them are in critical condition,” he said.
| In Depth | |||||||||||||||
|
The death toll on Friday had stood at 62 people, but Saturday’s announcement made it the deadliest attack since a car bomb destroyed a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing at least 125 people in October 2009.
About 80 shops were damaged or destroyed and 28 prisoners escaped from a prison because of the attack. Officials said they were ordinary criminals and not linked to the Taliban.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday. Ikhram Mullah, a spokesman for the group, telephoned a local TV station to lay claim to the blasts.
The Pakistani government has launched a series of offensives against the Taliban and similar groups in recent months, and Mohmand has seen fierce fighting between the two sides.
In recent months the government has employed the tactic of using civilian militias to fight the Taliban, with limited sucess.
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said that the bombings indicated a change of tactics for the Taliban.
“It was a political target,” he said “We have seen the Taliban attack military targets before – that’s their modus operandi – but this was a civilian target.”
Pakistan has been hit by a wave of deadly attacks in recent months. Last week two suicide bombers killed at least 42 people in an attack on Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore.