The assault in Quetta, the capital of south-western Baluchistan province, on Sunday also wounded about 60 worshippers. It was the first attack on a church claimed by the IS affiliate in Pakistan.

Mass funerals of those killed in the attack were to be held in Quetta later on Monday. The provincial police chief, Moazzam Ansari, said security forces were trying to find those who orchestrated the attack.

About 400 worshippers were attending the service when two bombers carrying assault rifles stormed the church, triggering a gun battle in which one assailant was killed by police guards and the other opened fire at worshippers and detonated his explosives vest.

The Islamic State affiliate initially only claimed responsibility for the attack but a second statement posted on the IS-linked Aamaq news agency said two IS “martyrdom-seeking fighters clad in explosive vests and carrying machine guns and hand grenades attacked the church”.

One of the attackers detonated his vest among the “Crusaders while the other was killed in a clash with the renegade Pakistani security forces”, it said.

IS has claimed several attacks in Pakistan in recent years though Islamabad denies the group’s presence and claims it has no organised network in the country.

Prime Minister Shahif Khaqan Abbasi and army chief General Qamer Javed Bajwa condemned the attack.

Naseem Masih, who was wounded in the assault, said one of the attackers reached…

America’s intelligence service, the CIA, warned Russia that an attack was being planned on St Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral, an iconic Russian Orthodox Church.

President Putin thanked President Trump in a phone call, confirmed by the White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Readout of President Trump’s call with President Putin-> pic.twitter.com/tIM6sBrUb4

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 17, 2017

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation said in a statement that an attack was planned for 16th December and added that they had detained seven suspects and confiscated a large amount of weapons and extremist literature.

They also said: “The laboratory for the manufacture of explosive devices has been eliminated.”

The White House issued a statement saying: “Russian authorities were able to capture the terrorists just prior to an attack that could have killed large numbers.”

It added that working together was mutually beneficial.

“Both leaders agreed that this serves as an example of the positive things than can occur when our countries work together,” the statement said.

Lord Carey accused his successor (pictured below) of “unjust” behaviour in urging him to consider relinquishing his position, following a report which criticised his response to sex abuse allegations.

Published in June, the independent report by Dame Moira Gibb concluded the 82-year-old received seven letters raising concerns about an abusive bishop but only passed one note to police.

The report also said Lord Carey did not put Bishop Peter Ball’s name onto a list of clergy whose behaviour had raised safeguarding concerns.

Ball (pictured below), a former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, was released from prison earlier this year after being jailed in 2015 for abusing 18 young men during a 15-year period.

Lord Carey, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 until 2002, resigned in June as an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Oxford, saying he “accepted the criticisms made of him”.

But, referring to the report’s claim that his response “must give rise to a perception of deliberate concealment”, Lord Carey also said any accusation of a cover up or collusion on his part were “wrong”.

In a Christmas letter addressed to friends and seen by the Guardian newspaper, he lamented the “shocking insistence by the archbishop that I should stand down from ministry…”

Lambeth Palace denied to comment on the letter but added the Dame Moira Gibb report “spoke for itself”.