Pakistan buries victims as bombing toll reaches 100

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Distraught relatives thronged hospitals in Pakistan's Peshawar on Tuesday to look for their kin a day after a suicide bombing ripped through a crowded mosque in the city, killing at least 100 people, mostly police officers.

The assault, on a Sunni mosque inside a major police facility, was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent years.

More than 300 worshippers were praying in the mosque with more approaching, when the bomber set off his explosives vest on Monday morning.

What was left of the roof then caved in, injuring many more, police officer Zafar Khan said. Rescuers had to remove mounds of debris to reach people still trapped under the rubble.

More bodies were retrieved overnight and early on Tuesday, and several of those critically injured died. "Most of them were policemen," government hospital spokesman Mohammad Asim said of the victims.

Chief rescue official Bilal Faizi said rescue teams were still working at the site on Tuesday as more people are believed to be trapped inside. Mourners were burying the victims at different graveyards in the city and elsewhere. The bombing also wounded more than 170 people.

It was not clear how the bomber was able to slip into the mosque in a high-security zone with other government building.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited a hospital in Peshawar after the bombing, and vowed "stern action" against those behind the attack.

"The sheer scale of the human tragedy is unimaginable. This is no less than an attack on Pakistan," he said. He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying their pain "cannot be described in words".

Authorities have not determined who was behind the bombing. Shortly after the explosion, Sarbakaf Mohmand, a commander for the Pakistani Taliban — also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP — claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on Twitter.

Taliban denial

But hours later, TTP spokesman Mohammad Khurasani distanced the group from the bombing, saying it was not its policy to target mosques and religious places.

The Pakistani Taliban are separate from the Afghan Taliban.

The Taliban-run Afghan Foreign Ministry said it was "saddened to learn that numerous people lost their lives" in Peshawar and condemned attacks on worshippers as contrary to the teachings of Islam.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on a visit to the Middle East, tweeted his condolences, saying the bombing in Peshawar was a "horrific attack".

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the bombing "particularly abhorrent "for targeting a place of worship, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan also expressed his condolences, calling the bombing a "terrorist suicide attack".

Agencies - Xinhua