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A minimum of 42 individuals had been killed and over 130 injured when a suicide bomber set off explosives at a political rally in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday, police and rescue officers stated.
The blast befell at a gathering of the conservative Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) occasion within the former tribal space of Bajaur, which borders Afghanistan. The occasion is led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, thought of to be a pro-Taliban cleric whose occasion is recognized for its hyperlinks to hardline political Islam.
An emergency has been declared within the hospitals of Bajaur and adjoining areas the place many of the injured had been taken, stated district police officer Nazir Khan. The critically injured had been transported from Bajaur to hospitals within the provincial capital Peshawar by army helicopters.
An announcement from Rescue 1122, a first-responder service, put the demise toll at 42. Khan stated the explosion, at a JUI-F staff conference in Khar city of Bajaur, had left greater than 130 injured, many severely.
The provincial police chief Akhtar Hayat informed Reuters the explosion was attributable to a suicide bomb.
Native occasion chief amongst these killed
Maulana Ziaullah, the native chief of Rehman’s occasion, was among the many useless. Senator Abdur Rasheed and former lawmaker Maulana Jamaluddin had been additionally on the stage however escaped unharmed. Occasion officers stated Rehman was not on the rally.
Pakistan has seen a resurgence of assaults by Islamist militants since final 12 months when a ceasefire between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamabad broke down.
Whereas the TTP and its related teams have been behind a majority of assaults in Pakistan in latest months, the group
distanced itself from Sunday’s assault, which its spokesperson condemned.
The TTP pledges allegiance to, however will not be straight part of, the Taliban in western neighbour Afghanistan. Pakistan’s safety forces say the TTP have sanctuaries in Afghanistan, which the Taliban run-administration there denies.
Afghanistan’s administration condemned the explosion in a press release by their spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid.
The TTP should not the one militant group to hold out assaults within the space, which has additionally been hit by an area chapter of the Islamic State.
The focused occasion, the JUI-F, is a serious ally of the coalition authorities of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, which is
making ready for nationwide elections to be held by November.
Sharif condemned the blast, calling it an assault on the democratic technique of Pakistan. He vowed that these accountable
can be punished.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan additionally condemned the explosion in posts on messaging platform X, previously generally known as Twitter.
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