ISLAMABAD, 18 January 2008 — At least 10 people were killed when a teenage suicide bomber yesterday blew himself up in a crowd of Shiite mourners during Ashoura observance in the northwestern Pakistani town of Peshawar.
At least 25 people were injured in the attack on the imambargah (prayer hall) in Pewshawar’s Jehangpura district, officials said. Most of them were taken to the nearby Lady Reading Hospital for treatment.
“It was a suicide attack,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema said here. “The bomber was 15 or 16 years old and he blew himself up after entering the gate leading to the prayer hall,” he said.
Cities across Pakistan were placed on high alert amid fears that the blast could heighten instability ahead of key elections in mid-February, which have been delayed following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
Television channels quoted witnesses as saying the attacker opened fire with an assault rifle before blowing himself up just inside the prayer hall while more than 100 people were observing Ashoura there. “I saw a young man push the security men at the gate and then run in firing. Then there was a huge explosion and lots of smoke,” Ghulam Abbas, an official at the prayer hall, said. “There were loud screams and there were body parts strewn around the gate. The electricity went out, bodies were inside and many people were injured,” he added.
Witnesses said pieces of human flesh were stuck to the ceiling and walls. Shoes and caps littered the floor, while some bodies lying in the hall were covered in black flags of mourning.
“I was sitting inside the imambargah when there was a huge blast. I blacked out and when I regained consciousness they told me that my uncle was killed,” said injured Mustapha Ali.
Another mourner, Waqar Hussein, said the walls of the hall were “splattered with blood and body parts.” “People were listening to a sermon when the man opened fire and then blew himself up. There were men, women and children inside, people were screaming,” said Waqar.
Shiites mourn the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), in Kerbala, Iraq in the seventh century.
The government announced 100,000 rupees in compensation for each of the dead and 50,000 rupees for the injured.
Yesterday’s bombing happened in the same district of Peshawar where a suicide attack last year during Ashoura killed 11 people.
President Pervez Musharraf condemned the latest attack, saying in a message carried by state media that the “perpetrators of this heinous crime were neither believers of any religion nor had any respect for human life.” More than 800 people have been killed in attacks — mainly suicide bombings targeting the security forces — in Pakistan over the past year, making 2007 the deadliest for militant violence in the country’s history.
The unrest has fueled international fears for the stability of the nuclear-armed country, a strategic US ally in the “war on terror,” ahead of the Feb. 18 election.
— Additional input from agencies
