Peshawar: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers for Friday prayers in northwestern Pakistan, killing scores of people and injuring scores more, officials said.
The blast badly damaged the mosque in Jamrud, a town near the Afghan border in an area beset by Taliban attacks as well as vicious feuds between rival tribes and militant groups. Authorities did not immediately speculate on a motive.
TV news channels put the death toll at 70 but agencies put the figure at 50.
Television footage showed scores residents and police officers digging frantically through the ruins of the white-walled mosque, whose roof appeared to have caved in.
The bomber struck when about 250 people were attending Friday prayers, said Tariq Hayat, the top administrator in the area. "We are struggling to find the survivors," Hayat told Geo television by telephone.
Assistant political agent Fida Bangash of Khyber Agency told TV channels that 15 officials of the local political administration had died in the bomb attack.
Tariq Hayat, the political agent of Khyber Agency, said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. Other officials said the attacker had rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the mosque, which is located near a Khasadar check post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan highway.
Jamrud lies in the semiautonomous Khyber tribal region, where militants have intensified attacks on trucks carrying supplies to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan.
While the motive for Friday's attack was not immediately clear, feuding militant groups in the area have carried out a string of tit-for-tat attacks, including attacks on mosques.
(With inputs from AP and PTI.)
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