IN PAKISTAN, 56 PEOPLE WERE KILLED AND 194 MORE WERE INJURED IN A MOSQUE BOMBING

Peshawar: A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, killing at least 56 people and injuring 194. It was Pakistan's bloodiest assault since 2018.

Moments before Friday prayers were to begin, a blast ripped through the Kocha Risaldar neighbourhood of the city, shattering the inside and showering the streets with broken glass.

It happened on the opening day of a cricket Test match between Pakistan and Australia at Rawalpindi, around 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the east. Australia has not toured Pakistan in nearly a quarter-century due to security concerns.

In Pakistan, 56 people were killed and 194 more were injured in a mosque bombing.

Peshawar: A suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, northwest Pakistan, killing at least 56 people and injuring 194. It was Pakistan's bloodiest assault since 2018.

Moments before Friday prayers were to begin, a blast ripped through the Kocha Risaldar neighbourhood of the city, shattering the inside and showering the streets with broken glass.

It happened on the opening day of a cricket Test match between Pakistan and Australia at Rawalpindi, around 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the east. Australia has not toured Pakistan in nearly a quarter-century due to security concerns.

Asghar claimed that he "then blew himself up."

"Before he entered the mosque, I observed a man fire at two police officers. I heard a loud blast a few seconds later "Zahid Khan, another witness, agreed.

To increase the damage, the assailant detonated five to eight kilos (two to four pounds) of "very explosive TNT" packed with ball bearings, according to Rab Nawaz Khan, the chief of Peshawar's bomb disposal squad.

At the blast site, where anxious family members were pushed back by police, an AFP correspondent observed body parts strewn about.

Officers of the law have been shot.

Two attackers were involved, according to Peshawar police head Muhammad Ijaz Khan.

Two police officers were fired at the mosque's entrance, he said.

"One police officer died on the spot, while the other was seriously injured," he claimed.

"We have declared an emergency at the hospitals," Muhammad Asim Khan, a spokesman at Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, said. "More injured are being brought."

The attack was "highly denounced," according to a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Imran Khan's office.

The incident was not immediately claimed by any organisation.

In the early 2010s, Peshawar, which is only 50 kilometres from Afghanistan's porous border, was a frequent target of extremists, but security has substantially improved in recent years.

Pakistan's Sunni majority has recently been fighting a revival of the Taliban's home chapter, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Last year's one-month cease-fire failed to hold, and there are fears that the TTP, which has previously targeted Shia Muslims, has been emboldened by the Afghan Taliban's success.

Shiites in the region have also been targeted by Islamic State Khorasan, a regional variant of the ISIS organisation (ISK).

In 2018, a suicide bomber targeted a packed market in Peshawar, killing at least 31 people.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of worshipers at a famed Sufi shrine in southern Sindh province a year ago, killing at least 88 people and injuring hundreds more.