Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan's NW Kill at Least 71 Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan's NW Kill at Least 71

Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan’s NW Kill at Least 71 Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan’s NW Kill at Least 71

06 November, 2010 06:19

Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan’s NW Kill at Least 71 Two Mosque Blasts in Pakistan’s NW Kill at Least 71

At least 71 people were killed in two explosions in mosques in Pakistan’s northwest on Friday, officials said.

In the first attack, 66 people were killed in a suicide bomb that destroyed mosque during the main weekly prayers and human remains were trapped under a collapsed roof and pulverized rubble.

The attack, Pakistan’s biggest since September, occurred in Darra Adam Khel, a suburb of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province capital Peshawar.Shiite News Reported.

“Now the death toll is 66. It may rise further because several injured are in critical condition,” Shahid Ullah, a senior provincial government official, told Reuters. He said 80 people were wounded.

Some 300 people had gathered just after prayers when the bomber walked into the Waali Mosque’s main hall and detonated himself, according to witnesses.

The attack in the volatile northwest was the deadliest in the nuclear-armed country on the front line of the US-led war on Al-Qaeda in two months. Dozens of people were critically wounded and officials feared the toll could rise. The attack turned the main weekly worship into a blood bath in Akhurwall village, part of the semi-tribal northwest area of Darra Adam Khel about 140 kilometers (90 miles) west of the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

AFP reporter said the force of the explosion reduced the mosque to a pile of rubble. Houses near the mosque were also damaged, including that of Wali Mohammad, the leader of a local pro-government militia that had clashed repeatedly with local Taliban militants until reportedly cutting a deal earlier this year.

Although the Taliban denied responsibility, a local elder blamed the militia and suggested it could have been acting to avenge a pro-government militia set up to thwart the militants.

In a second attack, an explosion inside a mosque on the outskirts of Peshawar during evening prayers killed at least five people, senior city administration official Siraj Ahmad said.