The death toll from the suicide bombing that occurred at a pro-Taliban Islamist party rally in Bajur, Pakistan, over the weekend has risen to 63, according to doctors on Wednesday. The attack targeted supporters of pro-Taliban cleric Fazlur Rehman and was carried out by an Afghan-based branch of the Islamic State group (IS). Around 123 wounded individuals are currently being treated, with nearly 200 injured in total, and 80 have been discharged. The incident has been one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan in recent years.
Bajur, located near the Afghanistan border, was once a region of conflict with the Pakistani Taliban. Although the district was declared clear of militants in 2016, Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam party remains a significant political force with close ties to the Afghan Taliban.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has urged Afghanistan’s Taliban government to take stronger action in preventing militants from crossing the border to carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban government is being called upon to ensure that its territory is not used as a safe haven for transnational terrorism.
Rehman has demanded the arrest of those responsible for the bombing, and it has been confirmed that the IS group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a separate but allied group with the Afghan Taliban, has also carried out deadly attacks in Pakistan since ending a ceasefire with the government last year.
Pakistan has experienced previous devastating attacks, including the 2014 Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed 147 people, mainly schoolchildren, as well as the bombing of a mosque in Peshawar in January 2023 that resulted in 74 deaths, and the mosque bombing inside the Peshawar police headquarters in February 2023, which claimed over 100 lives, mostly policemen.