NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st February, 2023) The Pakistani police have created a joint investigative group to analyze a security breach that made possible the recent terrorist attack on a mosque in the city of Peshawar, Chief of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police Moazzam Jah Ansari said on Wednesday.
On Monday, a suicide bomber set off an explosion in the mosque in Peshawar. Approximately 120 people were inside the mosque when the blast went off, most of them members of the army and police, Pakistani media reported. As a result of the attack, at least 100 people were killed and 221 others injured, according to the latest data.
"The security breach is currently under investigation. We are checking CCTV footage over one month and tracing middlemen of the terrorist. Those responsible will be identified and held accountable," Ansari told a press conference.
He added that intelligence, police and other security officers would join the investigative commission.
On Tuesday, Pakistani Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that 97 out of the 100 killed had been police officers. He added that Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (associated with al-Qaeda that is banned in Russia) had claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that the radical Islamist organization had denied its involvement in the explosion, saying that its rules prohibited attacks on mosques and public places. At the same time, sources told the news outlet that some local units of the organization could still be behind the attack.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan is an Islamist alliance of several regional radical groups. It specifically opposes the governments of Pakistan and India, seeking to extend its influence to a number of regions of these states. The Taliban movement in Afghanistan (under UN sanctions over terrorism) denies any connection with the eponymous alliance.
