Anti-Taliban militia targeted: 37 more funerals

A suicide blast kills 37 people, injures 52, in Adezai on the outskirts near Peshawar.

At least 37 people were killed and 52 injured when a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body during funeral prayers at Adezai village on the outskirts of Peshawar on Wednesday, police and hospital sources said.

Locals said that the attack came in the Sheikh Neka Baba graveyard two kilometres north of Adezai, as locals were offering funeral prayers for a woman related to the head of an anti-Taliban lashkar, or militia.

Medics at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) said that 36 dead and 52 injured had been brought to the facility and 10 of the wounded were in serious condition. Sources later said that the death toll had risen to 37.

Peshawar police chief Liaqat Ali Khan told reporters at the scene that it was a suicide attack targeting the militia. He said that militants had been attacking these villages with conventional forces before. Now, after the militia had managed to beat them away, they were sending suicide bombers.

“There were police and lashkar volunteers around to protect this gathering,” he said, adding that the attacker was not a local and they would investigate how he managed to get there.

Bomb Disposal Unit officials said that six to eight kilograms of explosives were used in the attack. He said that the bomber was also carrying hand grenades to maximise the casualties.

Haji Dilawar Khan, who heads the Adezai lashkar, told The Express Tribune that at least 37 people belonging to the village had perished in the bombing  and at least 500 people were taking part in the funeral prayers.

The site was littered with human limbs and bloodied shoes, caps and shawls.

Eyewitness Akhtar Nawaz, who was standing in the third row, told The Express Tribune that funeral prayers were about to start when the bomber, who appeared to be in his early thirties and had a beard, arrived at the scene.

He said that the locals gave him time to join the prayers and after the prayer leader had said the first takbeer, there was a loud “Allah-o-Akbar” and all present fell to the ground.

“When I stood up again, there were bodies strewn all around,” he said.

Anwar, another local, said that he heard a loud “Allah-o-Akbar”, followed by a blast. “Then there was smoke and blood all around,” he said.

The dead woman was identified as the wife of Wakeel, maternal cousin of Dilawar Khan, the militia chief. Wakeel’s brother Abdul Kalam is among the senior figures in the militia.

Adezai village is situated some 25 kilometres south of the provincial capital, close to Peshawar’s border with the Darra Adamkhel tribal region. It has been at war with militants since August 2007, when villagers formed a militia on the insistence of the government after a police patrol was attacked in the village.

In November 2009, the first head of the village militia, Haji Abdul Malik, and 30 others were killed in a suicide attack.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2011.