37 worshippers die in bombing

PESHAWAR. March 28. KAZINFORM. A suicide bomber demolished a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers attending Friday prayers near the Afghan border, killing at least 37 people and injuring scores more, in the bloodiest attack in Pakistan this year.

The bomber struck at the end of the sermon just as the imam started the prayer, witnesses said. ?As the prayer leader began the prayer, the bomb went off with a big bang,? said Nadir Shah, a local paramilitary soldier who was among the worshippers. ?I felt it was the end of everything. Sometime later when I opened my eyes, I was lying among dead bodies.? The blast in the Khyber Pass came hours before President Barack Obama unveiled a revised strategy to ?disrupt, defeat and dismantle? the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization and the Taleban operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan?s northwest. A government official accused militants of carrying out the bombing in revenge for a recent offensive aimed in part at protecting the major supply route for NATO and US troops in Afghanistan that passes in front of the mosque. Several of the dead were local security officers who were praying there, officials said. ?Residents of this area had cooperated and helped us a lot. These infidels had warned that they will take revenge,? said Tariq Hayat, the top administrator of the Khyber tribal region. ?They are the enemy of Pakistan. They are the enemy of Islam.? The bomber targeted the mosque when about 250 people were attending the Friday prayers, said Hayat. Rahat Gul, a spokesman for the Khyber administration, had earlier said 50 people had been killed and 75 wounded, but Hayat later revised the death toll to 37. Among the dead were 14 policemen and paramilitary soldiers while 160 were wounded; Kazinform cites Arab News. Residents and police officers dug frantically with their hands through the ruins of the white-walled mosque, whose roof collapsed in the explosion. Rescuers hauled bodies covered in dust and blood in blankets and bed sheets to ambulances and private cars waiting to take them to hospital.