Pakistani attack: Suicide bomber dressed as police officer to carry out attack

Attack on mosque In northwest Pakistan, at least 100 people have been killed and more than 150 injured by a suicide bomber who managed to pass through a security zone while disguised as a police officer, authorities said on Thursday, claiming they had found his trail.

“He was a suicide bomber and we tracked him down (…) we got images Cable TV about his movement from Khyber Road to the police line (…) he was in a police uniform,” the Chief of Police of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said at a press conference, Moazzam Jah Ansari.

The attack, which took place last Monday, took place at a mosque in the Police Lines area, a residential and police training center in the city of Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Although it is a high-security zone, the police at the entrance to the complex did not “check the attacker because they thought he was one of them,” Asanri said.

The provincial police chief also assured that the attacker did not act alone, and that the security forces were already “approaching” the scene. terrorist network behind the attack. According to him, among the finds made at the site of the massacre, there is a decapitated head of a suicide bomber.

Although the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main group of the Pakistani Taliban, is behind most of the attacks in Pakistan, this armed fundamentalist organization has vehemently denied responsibility for the attack.

Attempt

Between 300 and 400 worshipers, most of whom were police officers, were in the compound performing their usual afternoon prayers when the assailant blew himself up, blowing off the temple’s roof. mosque.

According to the investigation, “at 12:37 p.m. (the attacker) entered the main gate on a motorcycle, spoke to a policeman and asked him where the mosque was,” Ansari said.

The attack used between 10 and 12 kilograms of TNT, a high-powered explosive, given the strength of the waves in the enclosed space and that the 50-year-old mosque “had no columns (…) when the bomb exploded, the walls and roof collapsed”, he explained.

Some people have already been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack.

Several provincial police officers met yesterday in front of the press club Peshawar demanding security while assuring that the attack was coordinated by internal elements, giving weight to suggestions that the terrorists who planted the bomb might have been among the police.

However, today the police assured that under the rubble (mosques) they found “ball bearings used in a suicide jacket” to support the version of a suicide bombing. (EFE)