A bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan killed a prominent Sunni Muslim official just hours after a suicide attack in a nearby Shiite Muslim-dominated village left 29 dead, police said yesterday.
It was not immediately clear if two were linked, but the mosque bomb on Friday was the third blast in the area in two days, underscoring the relentless security threat in a region riddled with Taliban and al-Qaeda and simmering with sectarian tension.
The bomb went off at the mosque in Och village near Hangu town before midnight, killing district mayor Haji Khan Afzal and wounding three other people, police official Gul Jamal said.
PHOTO: AFP
Afzal was apparently praying at the mosque when the blast — 8kg of explosives detonated by remote control — brought its roof crashing down onto him, Jamal said.
The mayor was affiliated with Jamaat Ulema Islam, an Islamist party in the government.
HOTEL BOMBING
Earlier on Friday, a suicide car bomber rammed into the two-story Hikmat Ali Hotel on the outskirts of Kohat town in Usterzai village, killing 29 people and wounding 55 others. The hotel — owned by a Shiite — was among several buildings destroyed or badly damaged, police official Asmat Ullah said.
Local media reported that a little known group calling itself Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi claimed responsibility. It is possible the group is linked to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni extremist outfit with ties to al-Qaeda.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda believe Shiite Muslims are infidels, and their influence has fueled sectarian attacks that have long plagued Pakistan.
The latest assaults came just days before Muslims from both sects celebrate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
“When the clouds of dust cleared, I saw the dead bodies and the pieces of bodies all around and everywhere there was blood and wounded people. They were crying,” Wagar Ali, who was wounded in the blast, told AP Television News.
TV footage showed some of the wounded in hospital beds and on stretchers. The victims were bloodied, bandaged and seemingly in shock.
EYEWITNESS
Vegetable seller Madad Ali, who was hurt in the explosion, said he saw the suicide bomber approaching.
“I was working when I saw a van come from the Kohat road. Inside was a man with a beard and he blew himself up with a very powerful blast,” Ali said. “The roof of the shop came in on me and I was stuck underneath. People started to dig us out from the rubble.”
Pakistan has launched several offensives against extremist groups in the area over the past year, but attacks persist.
The US is particularly anxious for Pakistan to clamp down on insurgents it blames for attacks on US and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.
Kohat police official Ali Hasan Khan said four more bodies were retrieved from the rubble of the car bombing late on Friday, raising the death toll to 29. Another 55 people were wounded and hospitalized, Khan said.
On Thursday, six people were wounded when a bomb planted outside a shop in Kohat’s main bazaar exploded.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS