Suicide blast kills 27 mourners in Lower Dir

The explosion, detonated by a 15-year-old suicide bomber, injured 67 people in Samar Bagh area.

PESHAWAR:

At least 27 people were killed and 67 injured when a suicide bomber attacked the funeral of a local man in the Samar Bagh area of the Lower Dir district on Thursday, police said.

Lower Dir District Police Officer Saleem Marwat told The Express Tribune that the blast struck as mourners were preparing to offer prayers for Bakht Sultan in the Berosheena area of Samar Bagh tehsil.

He added that at least 10 kilogrammes of explosives were packed in the suicide vest.

The blast came two days after four schoolchildren were killed in an explosion claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack.

Regarding the motives behind the attack, Marwat said that it was apparently neither aimed at some high profile figure nor was it target killing. “The children of Bakht Sultan are carpenters and they are poor people,” he added.

However, AFP quotes the senior police official as saying that the bomber targeted members of a state-sponsored anti-Taliban militia operating in the area. He reportedly said the bomber’s head had been retrieved from the scene and indicated that the attacker, who had hidden in the nearby fields, was in his late teens.

Local sources told The Express Tribune that Bakht Sultan was killed in a traffic accident on the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway on Wednesday.

Sources quoted witnesses who said that the blast took place when the funeral prayers were in progress. A teenage boy, approximately 15-years-old, initially failed to detonate explosives strapped to his body, they added, but was successful in his second attempt.

Local senior police official Akhtar Hayat Gandapur said that more than 100 people were in attendance at the funeral.

Zahoor Khan, the owner of a medical store in Jandol, described scenes of devastation following the explosion.

“I could see pools of blood everywhere on the ground with pieces of flesh lying on the ground,” he said.

“There were mutilated bodies everywhere. People were collecting the remains of the dead in bed sheets.”

The injured were rushed to the Timergarah and Samar Bagh hospitals, where an emergency was declared. Some of those in a critical condition were moved to Peshawar for treatment.

Samar Bagh tehsil in Lower Dir district is situated close to the Pak-Afghan border.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 16^th, 2011.