Bomber kills at least 50 in Pakistan
CHARSADDA, Pakistan – At least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured Friday when a suicide bomber attacked a mosque on the holy day of Eid al-Adha in a remote town in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier.
The attack was apparently aimed at former interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, who was among those offering special Eid prayers in his home town, some 40 miles from the provincial capital of Peshawar.
Sherpao survived the attack, though one of his sons was injured. Sherpao is a candidate in Jan. 8 parliamentary elections and heads a splinter group of the Pakistan People’s Party, led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
A police official called the bombing an “inhuman act of terrorism.” Police said more than 1,000 people were in the mosque, the main one in the town, for Eid prayers when the blast occurred in the eighth row.
Sherpao also was the target of a bombing in April that killed more than 30 people and injured more than 50. This time, police said there was a metal detector at the mosque door and extra security in place because of threats on Sherpao’s life.
“It was like a terrible explosion in the middle rows of the mosque, and then there was only smoke and cries of the people,” said Mohmmad Irshad, who was praying in the mosque’s last row.
“It was so sudden and so shocking that nobody knew what happened,” Irshad said. He added, “I personally saw dozens of dead bodies and injured lying on the ground.”
Residents said the town, also named Sherpao, was devastated by the loss of life.
“We had bought sacrificial animals for the Eid day celebration and would go for our sacrifices after the prayer, but we didn’t know that there will be a human bloodshed in our village instead of animal blood,” said Abdul Khaliq, a 38-year-old resident of Sherpao.
“There is hardly a home today in our village where there is no dead body or injured,” said Khaliq, whose uncle and four cousins died in the blast.
The town and others nearby had mass funerals Friday afternoon.
Eid vacations had left hospitals thinly staffed, and the flood of the dying and injured presented a challenge for them.
“We have just nominal staff (for Eid), and it’s impossible to cope with such a big carnage today,” said Qaisar Khan, an official in the district headquarters hospital at Charsadda, the main town of the area.
“Many of the injured are critical, and they may lose their lives on the way to other hospitals. But we can’t do anything because it’s Eid day here and all the staffers have gone to their ancestral towns for the celebration of Eid, and it’s hard to call them on such a short notice.”
Sherpao is considered an ally of President Pervez Musharraf. As interior minister, he ran military operations against al-Qaida and tribal militants along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
Pakistan has experienced a wave of suicide attacks recently, most in North-West Frontier province and the volatile tribal belt. More than 600 people have lost their lives in the bombings. Officials blame pro-Taliban militants and al-Qaida remnants in the tribal areas.