(Peshawar) The suicide bomber in the police headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan, wore a police uniform and helmet, which allowed him to pass through checks and make 84 dead, according to a downwardly revised toll.
Officers on duty ‘did not check him because he was in police uniform […]. It was a (security) breach,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police chief, told a news conference on Thursday.
Hundreds of police were taking part in a prayer Monday afternoon at the police headquarters mosque when the blast occurred, causing a wall to collapse under which officers were crushed.
The attack left 84 dead, according to a downwardly revised death toll, due to the “double registration” of some deaths by families, the chief of police of the city of Peshawar, Muhammad Ijaz Khan, told AFP. .
He said 83 of those who died were police officers. A civilian woman who lived and worked at the compound was also killed.
This is one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan for several years, and since the resurgence of violence in the region after the capture of Kabul on August 15, 2021 by the Taliban.
“A network behind him”
The police have a “pretty precise idea” of the identity of its author, having made the connection between CCTV images and his head, found at the scene of the explosion.
“There is an entire network behind it,” added Mr. Ansari, explaining that the attack was not planned by its sole author.
Authorities are investigating how a major security breach may have occurred in one of the city’s most tightly controlled areas, home to intelligence and counterterrorism offices, neighboring the regional secretariat .
Authorities are also investigating the possibility that people inside the headquarters perimeter may have helped coordinate the attack, a senior city police official said on condition of anonymity.
“We arrested people from the police (headquarters) to investigate how the explosive material could have been brought inside and whether police were involved in the attack,” the official told AFP. the AFP.
According to the same source, at least 23 people were detained. Some are from former tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, neighboring Peshawar.
The attack plunged the city back into a state of tension that it had not known since the time, more than a decade ago, when it was the scene of the unbridled militancy of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), by subsequently driven towards the mountainous border and Afghanistan.
Experts say TTP militants have grown bolder since the withdrawal of NATO and US troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s capture of Kabul.
Security forces have since been the target of an increasing number of attacks that often occur at checkpoints.
Most of these actions are claimed by the Pakistani Taliban or by the regional branch of the jihadist group Islamic State, but the attacks responsible for many deaths remain rare.
The TTP disassociated themselves from the attack on the Peshawar mosque, saying they no longer attack places of worship.
However, police said authorities are investigating whether someone affiliated with the group was responsible for the attack.