ISLAMABAD: A police officer was killed and four suspects, including the “Afghan Daesh mastermind,” were arrested in overnight raids in connection with a deadly suicide bombing in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, police and security officials said on Saturday.
Officials have confirmed 32 deaths from Friday’s blast at the Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque and imambargah in the Tarlai Kallan area on Islamabad’s outskirts, with more than 150 others injured.
The blast occurred during Friday prayers, when mosques around the country are packed with worshippers. A regional Daesh (Islamic States) affiliate said one of its members had targeted the congregation by detonating an explosive vest.
Pakistani intelligence and law enforcement agencies conducted several raids and arrested four suspects in Peshawar and Nowshera in connection with the bobing, while a police officer was killed and three others injured in shootout with militants, officials said.
“The operations were carried out based on technical intelligence and human intelligence,” said a security official, who requested anonymity, on Saturday afternoon.
“Four facilitators of the suicide attacker have been arrested. The Afghan Daesh mastermind behind the suicide attack has also been arrested,” he said. “The planning, training, and indoctrination for the attack were conducted by Daesh in Afghanistan.”
There was no immediate comment from the Afghan side to the statement.
The police officer, who was killed in the shootout with militants in the northwestern district of Nowshera, was identified as Assistant Sub-Inspector Ejaz Khattak, Nowshera police spokesperson Turk Ali Shah told Arab News.
Friday’s mosque blast was the deadliest in Islamabad since a 2008 suicide bombing at the Marriott Hotel that killed 63 people and wounded more than 250. In November, a suicide bomber struck outside a court in the capital, killing 12 people.
The latest attack comes as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government deals with a surge in militancy across Pakistan. Pakistani officials have said the attacker was a Pakistani national who had recently traveled to Afghanistan.
On Friday evening, Tallal Chaudhry, Pakistan’s state minister for interior, blamed the Islamabad mosque attack on militants “sponsored by India and supported by Afghanistan.”
“He is not an Afghan national, but details of how many times he traveled to Afghanistan have been obtained,” Chaudhry said.
Islamabad has long accused Kabul of allowing its soil to be used by militant groups and New Delhi of backing their cross-border attacks against Pakistani civilians and security forces. The Afghan and Indian governments have consistently denied the allegations.
