Pakistani Mosque Bomber Was Dressed As Police Officer - Authorities

Pakistani Mosque Bomber Was Dressed as Police Officer - Authorities

The perpetrator that carried out a terrorist attack on a mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar was dressed as a police officer and wore a mask and a helmet, Chief of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police Moazzam Jah Ansari said on Thursday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd February, 2023) The perpetrator that carried out a terrorist attack on a mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar was dressed as a police officer and wore a mask and a helmet, Chief of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police Moazzam Jah Ansari said on Thursday.

On Monday, a suicide bomber set off an explosion in a mosque in Peshawar. Approximately 120 people were inside the mosque when the blast went off, most of them members of the army and police, Pakistani media reported. As a result of the attack, at least 100 people were killed and 221 others injured, according to the latest data.

"This was a suicide bomber and we have traced him... we have obtained the CCTV footage of his movement from Khyber Road to the Police Lines... then how he parked his motorcycle on a side... he was in a police uniform and was wearing a mask and a helmet," Ansari was quoted as saying by the Dawn broadcaster.

He added that police officers on duty failed to "check the attacker" because they thought he was one of them.

"At 12:37 pm (7:37 GMT), he (the bomber) entered the main gate on a motorcycle, came inside, talked to a constable and asked him where the mosque was. This means that the attacker was not aware of the area... he was given a target and there is an entire network behind him... he was not a lone wolf," the officer said.

Ansari also confirmed that the decapitated head found at the scene belonged to the terrorist.

The police chief specified that 10-12 kilograms (22-26 Pounds) of TNT were used in the explosion, and the explosive device had a lot of small parts attached to it. The police were checking lists of people who died to avoid duplicates and provide an exact number of victims, he added.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that 97 out of the 100 killed were police officers. He added that Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (associated with al-Qaeda, banned in Russia) had claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that the radical Islamist organization had denied its involvement in the explosion, saying that its rules prohibited attacks on mosques and public places. At the same time, sources told the news outlet that some local units of the organization could still be behind the attack.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is an Islamist alliance of several regional radical groups. It specifically opposes the governments of Pakistan and India, seeking to extend its influence to a number of regions of these states. The Taliban movement in Afghanistan (under UN sanctions over terrorism) denies any connection with the eponymous alliance.