According to local authorities, an attack in the Bajaur district of northwest Pakistan results in at least 44 fatalities and approximately 200 injuries.
At least 44 people were killed and close to 200 were injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a political gathering in northwest Pakistan, according to officials. On the outskirts of Khar in Pakistan’s northwest Bajaur district, which borders Afghanistan, the fundamentalist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) party gathering was where the explosion occurred on Sunday. No one immediately took blame.
The suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest close to the platform where numerous top party leaders were seated, according to a statement from the provincial police. Initial investigations indicated that the ISIL (ISIS) group may have been responsible for the attack, and it was stated that police were still looking into it.
Following the overthrow of President Ashraf Ghani’s administration, the armed group has been active in the neighboring Afghani country. Its members are known to cross the permeable mountain border and take cover in the Peshawar region, where it fights the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
According to Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, 44 people have already been “martyred” and close to 200 have been hurt in the attack.
According to district police official Nazir Khan, an emergency has been declared in the hospitals in Bajaur and the surrounding districts where the majority of the injured were transported. Military helicopters flew the critically injured from Bajaur to hospitals in Peshawar, the provincial capital.
“There was dust and smoke around, and I was under some injured people from where I could hardly stand up, only to see chaos and some scattered limbs,” Adam Khan(45), who was knocked to the ground by the blast and hit by splinters in his knee and both hands, explained.
The inspector general of police for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Akhtar Hayat Gandapur, stated that senior party leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman was not there at the time of the explosion. JUI-F is a member of the Pakistan Democratic Alliance, a government-aligned political group in which Rehman is a key figure.
According to Radio Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the act and expressed his sympathies to the families of the victims, including JUI-F leader Ziaullah Jan, who was confirmed slain in the attack.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari “expressed deep sorrow over the loss of precious lives,” according to a statement issued by his Pakistan Peoples Party. It went on to say that “terrorists, their facilitators, and planners must be eliminated so that peace can be established in the country.”
Marriyum Aurangzeb, the Interior Minister, stated on social media that “terrorists’ religion is only terrorism.” “Ending terrorism is critical for Pakistan’s survival and integrity,” she said.
The bombing on Sunday was one of the four deadliest strikes in northwestern Pakistan since 2014, when 147 people were murdered in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar. An explosion at a mosque in Peshawar killed 74 people in January. More than 100 people, predominantly police officers, were killed in an explosion at a mosque inside a high-security enclosure housing the Peshawar police headquarters in February.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistan Taliban and affiliated to the Taliban in Afghanistan, distanced itself from the incident on Sunday, which its spokesman denounced.
For more than a decade, the TTP has waged a revolt against the state of Pakistan, seeking the installation of Islamic rule, the release of important members incarcerated by the government, and the reversal of the merger of Pakistan’s tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The Afghan Taliban’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, also condemned the recent bombing. “Such crimes cannot be justified in any way,” he wrote on the social media network X, which was formerly known as Twitter.
According to Nizam Salarzai, a writer with the independent news outlet The Khorasan Diary, the JUI-F has been targeted by the ISIL (ISIS) group for the last two years.
“They have a problem with the Afghan Taliban as well, and anyone who approves of Taliban sentiments,” Salarzai told Al Jazeera. If ISIL (ISIS) is found to be the group responsible for the attack, he says, “it may mean that the Pakistani state will have to fight on multiple fronts” to avoid future attacks.
The onslaught, according to Abdul Rasheed, the party’s regional head, was an attempt to eliminate JUI-F from the field before the November legislative elections, but he claimed such tactics would fail.
“Many of our colleagues were killed and many more were injured in this incident.” “I will request that the federal and provincial governments fully investigate this incident and provide appropriate compensation and medical facilities to those affected,” Rasheed said.
The attack serves as a grim reminder of the challenges Pakistan faces in combating terrorism and maintaining stability in the region. It also renews the call for international cooperation to address the root causes of extremism and violence, striving for a more peaceful future.
