By Canadian Press

Mosque bombing in northwest Pakistan kills 2, wounds 70

Jan 30, 2023 | 1:15 AM

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful bomb went off Monday near a mosque and police offices in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least two people and wounding some 70 worshippers, police and government officials said.

Most of the victims were police officers, the officials said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.

Zafar Khan, a local police officer, said rescuers are trying to get the wounded to a nearby hospital. He said it appeared to have been a suicide bombing, but an investigation will provide more details.

Khan said several of the wounded were listed in critical condition at a hospital and there were fears the death toll would rise.

Suspicion in such attacks falls most often on the Pakistani Taliban, who have in the past claimed similar bombings.

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The Pakistani Taliban, are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, and are separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws in the country, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.

The Associated Press