Christian Today report– At least 10 people were killed when gunmen opened fire in a mosque during Friday prayers in the Pakistani city of Peshawar today.
According to witnesses, the attackers entered the Shia mosque in the city’s wealthy Hayatabad district and began firing at the worshippers gathered inside. Three explosions were then reportedly heard inside the building, and police say grenades were thrown. TV footage showed people, some injured, fleeing from the scene.
“Ten dead bodies and 40 wounded people have been brought to Hayatabad Medical Complex,” a doctor, Mumtaz Marwat, told the BBC.
Though no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, radical Sunni Islamist groups have targeted Shia mosques in the past.
On January 30, a Shia mosque was attacked in Sindh province, killing more than 60 people. The Jundallah militant group – a Sunni organisation linked to the Pakistani Taliban and which has announced allegiance with Islamic State – later claimed responsibility for the violence. It was the deadliest sectarian attack in the country in almost two years.
Fahad Marwat, a spokesman for Jundullah, told Reuters they had targeted the building because the Shias “are our enemies”.
Peshawar, in the north-west of Pakistan, has seen significant violence in recent years. At least 119 people, including 37 children, were killed in a suicide bombing outside All Saints Church in the city in September 2013.
Some 133 children and 17 adults also died when Taliban gunmen stormed a school in Peshawar last December.
Source: Christian Today