Pakistan celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad on Friday September 29. As in most cities in the country, many faithful gathered on this public holiday near the Madina mosque in Mastung, in the province of Balochistan, not far from the Afghan border. By late morning, around noon, some 500 people were gathering for a procession.
It was at this moment that a suicide bomber chose to blow himself up near the mosque and cause as many civilian victims as possible. The latest report shows 53 people killed, including children, and more than 70 injured, some in critical condition. Videos posted on social networks bear witness to the violence of the scene, showing a pile of shoes, blood, bodies covered with sheets and injured people evacuated by rescuers.
The authorities had placed the police on maximum alert, fearing a new tragedy on the occasion of this Mawlid festival. President Arif Alvi and caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar had called for unity.
Pakistan has been plunged into a security crisis since the return of the Taliban to Afghanistan in 2021. On Friday, another explosion also destroyed a mosque in Hangu, in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing at least five people and injuring seven others. Places of worship have become prime targets for terrorists.
Low-intensity insurgency
The Mastung and Hangu attacks have not been claimed. The Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), this terrorist organization which brings together radical Sunni Islamist groups and which has increased attacks since 2022 and the end of the ceasefire between the government, have denied any involvement.
Suspicions fall on the regional subsidiary of the Islamic State (IS) group. On September 14, ISIS had already targeted the convoy of a senior official of a pro-Afghan Taliban political party in Mastung. The bomb injured 11 people. The jihadist organization is also responsible for a suicide attack in July, one of the bloodiest, which left 54 dead during an electoral rally of the conservative Islamic party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami-Fazal (JUI-F ), member of the government coalition, in the town of Khar, in northwest Pakistan.
This type of suicide attack against civilian populations is not usual in this region from which the interim Prime Minister comes. Located in the far south, facing Iran, but also Afghanistan, a refuge for terrorists, Balochistan is shaken by an old low-intensity insurgency which claims independence and carries out attacks against the army, political leaders and more recently against Chinese investors.
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