Prominent religious leader among 4 killed in northwest Pakistan bombing

At least four people, including a prominent religious-political leader, have been killed and 20 others injured in a bomb attack during Friday prayers at a religious seminary in northwestern Pakistan.

The bombing was carried out at Darul Uloom Haqqania, located in the Akora Khattak area of Nowshera district, about 60 kilometers east of Peshawar.

Local police officials confirmed that at least four people were killed and over 20 wounded.

Sources said Hamid-ul-Haq, who is also among the dead, appeared to be the target of the bomber.

“Initial reports suggest the blast occurred after Friday prayers as people were gathering to greet Hamid-ul-Haq,” a local police official was quoted as saying.

Authorities declared an emergency in hospitals and health facilities across Nowshera and the provincial capital, Peshawar.

The religious-political leader was believed to have close relations with the Afghan Taliban, and had met their leaders as part of “religious diplomacy” in 2024.

President Asif Ali Zardari “strongly” condemned the attack and offered condolences to the bereaved, according to a statement from the president’s office.

“Targeting innocent worshippers is a despicable and heinous act,” he said. “Terrorists are enemies of the country, nation, and humanity.”

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the attack and expressed well wishes for the injured, according to a statement from his office.

Haq’s father, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a former senator, was also assassinated in the northeastern garrison city of Rawalpindi in 2018.

Haq was head of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, one of the mainstream religious-political parties in Pakistan.

The sprawling campus in Akora Khattak is home to roughly 4,000 students.

Mullah Omar, Taliban’s former leader, who led an insurgency against the United States and NATO in Afghanistan before his death in 2013, graduated from the school along with Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the Haqqani network, which took its name from the school.

Jalaluddin Haqqani was the father of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the current interior minister for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, himself also a student of the school.

UN warns Daesh Afghanistan branch posing threats to Europe, beyond

Regional countries hold the United States and Britain responsible for the growth of the Daesh terrorist group in Afghanistan

A spokesman for the interior ministry in Kabul said the Taliban government “strongly condemn the attack” and blamed it on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

The Taliban surged back to power in Kabul in August 2021 after US-led foreign forces withdrew and the former government collapsed.

Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.

Data indicates a rise in attacks and fatalities, particularly in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and southwestern province of Balochistan, both of which border Afghanistan.

Militancy has since rebounded in the border regions with Afghanistan. The year 2024 was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people.

Over the past years, militants have been involved in multiple terrorist attacks, including targeted bombings and killing of members of religious communities and security officials nationwide.

On December 16, 2014, the group attacked Peshawar’s Army School, where more than 150 people, mostly children, were killed. It was one of the deadliest massacres in Pakistan’s history.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir