Blast at mosque in Pakistan’s Peshawar
At least 14 people killed as suicide bomber attacks a Shia Muslim mosque in northwestern city during Friday prayers.
A suicide bomber has attacked a Shia Muslim mosque in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 14 people, police have said.
Senior police officer Abdul Hamid Khan said the bombing in the city of Peshawar also wounded 30 people.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack which took place during Friday prayers.
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from Peshawar, said the attack happened at an urban mosque in the city. He said that according to sources, a gunman also walked into the mosque’s prayer room and opened fire.
Local TV video showed blood splattered on the floor and walls of the mosque. Broken glass littered the floor, and there were holes in the walls and ceiling caused by ball bearings packed in with the bomber’s explosives.
Rescue workers were seen wheeling wounded victims into a local hospital.
Shia community
The mosque and madrassa complex is located in Gulshan Colony, a Shia-dominated area on the edge of Peshawar, a city which abuts fighter strongholds in the northwestern tribal belt on the Afghan border.
Khan said that the incident is being viewed as the latest sectarian attack on the Shia community.
On Saturday, a bomb that appeared to be targeting Shia Muslims ripped through a bus carrying female university students in the southwest city of Quetta, killing 14 people.
Fighters then attacked a hospital where wounded victims were taken, killing several more people.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack in Quetta.
The group has carried out many of the attacks against Shia Muslims in Pakistan in recent years, especially in Balochistan province, where Quetta is the capital.