QUETTA – At least 15 people, including a senior police officer, have beenkilled and several others injured in a powerful explosion that rippedthrough a mosque in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.
Police said an improvised explosive device that had been planted at themosque led to the explosion during Friday prayers in the capital ofBalochistan Province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
The blast killed the senior police officer, Haji Amanullah, whose son wasalso killed by unknown people last month.
A spokesman for Pakistan military said paramilitary troops were conductinga search operation around the site.
Local police chief Mohammad Ajmal and hospital officials said the deathtoll from the bombing, the second in Quetta this week, could rise.
The Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The attack came just days after a roadside bomb in Quetta hit aparamilitary force vehicle, killing two troops.
Pakistan’s restive and mineral-rich Balochistan province is rife withseparatist, extremist and sectarian violence and has been the scene ofseveral bomb and gun attacks over the past years.
Read Top Stories
Balochistan was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks in late 2016,raising fears about an increasing presence of armed militants in the area,including terrorists linked to the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
Baloch separatist groups and militants in the province have also beenengaged in a decades-long campaign against the central government.
Despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani army, acts of terror bymilitants continue to target security forces as well as civilians.
Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and othermilitant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered into an alliance withthe United States in Washington’s so-called war on terror.
In January 2019, five people were killed and more than two dozen othersinjured in an attack by militants on a police office in Balochistan.
