Khar: One of the worst attacks in the area in recent memory occurred in Pakistan on Monday, when an Afghan branch of Daesh claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that left at least 54 people dead at an election rally for a party supporting the Taliban.
The assertion was made by Daesh in the Khorasan Province in a statement published on its Amaq website. It claimed that the bombing in the northwest town of Bajur was a result of the attacker detonating an explosive vest and was a part of the group's ongoing struggle against democratic movements that it views as hostile to Islam.
Following the attack the day before at the election rally for the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, hundreds of mourners in Bajur carried coffins draped in colourful cloths to grave sites. According to officials, the bombing on Sunday left 54 people dead, including at least five children, and close to 200 people injured.
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The attack appeared to be the result of conflicts between Islamist organisations, which are well-represented in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province district that borders Afghanistan. The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are connected to the Jamiat Ulema Islam party.
For the rally ahead of the autumn elections, at least 1,000 people were crammed into a tent close to a market, according to police. "People were chanting God is Great as the leaders arrived," claimed Khan Mohammad, a local, "and that was when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb." Khan Mohammad claimed he was standing outside the tent.
According to Mohammad, he overheard people pleading for assistance; moments later, ambulances showed up and started transporting the injured.
Islamic State in the Province of Khorasan was mentioned as a potential suspect by the police during their initial investigation. The organisation, which has its base in the neighbouring Afghan province of Nangarhar, is an enemy of both the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Separate Pakistani Taliban factions may be suspects, according to security analyst Mahmood Shah, even though the organisation disassociated itself from the attack.
Before declaring the Bajur district free of militants in 2016, the Pakistani military fought the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, there for years. However, the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, led by politician and hardline cleric Fazlur Rehman, has continued to be a significant political force.
Police interviewed some of the injured Monday at a hospital in Khar, the district's main town.
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Following local customs, the deceased were brought to funerals on Monday at family homes, where female relatives and kids sobbed and beat their chests. Numerous men followed the coffins to mosques and public spaces for special funeral prayers before they were buried in the hills.
Numerous patients with less serious injuries were released from the hospital as condolences continued to arrive from all over the nation, but the critically injured were flown by army helicopters to Peshawar, the provincial capital. According to doctor Gul Naseeb, the death toll kept rising as some seriously injured people passed away in the hospital.
The Associated Press was informed by Gul Akbar, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was hurt in the attack, that his entire family was in shock following the bombing on Sunday. He claimed to have first arrived at the scene of the assault before discovering his son Taslim Khan receiving care in a Khar hospital.
"What if he had also been martyred? What would I have done? In this heinous assault, five children perished, and we want to know what our kids did wrong," he said.
Elections, which are anticipated to take place in October or November, are being prepared for by Rehman's party. One of the party's senior leaders, Abdul Rasheed, claimed that the bombing was intended to weaken the party but that "such attacks can't deter our resolve.”
Rehman received a call from Sharif to offer his condolences and reassure him that those responsible for the attack would be held accountable. The US and Russian embassies in Islamabad joined Khan in denouncing the bombing on Sunday. The Pakistani Taliban also denied involvement in the bombing, claiming it was carried out with the intention of dividing Islamists. The Afghan Taliban's spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, stated in a tweet that "such crimes cannot be justified in any way." The bombing occurred just hours before Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived in Islamabad, where he signed new agreements to strengthen trade and economic ties to commemorate ten years of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a vast initiative under which China has invested $10 billion in Pakistan over ten years.
As he stood next to He, Sharif said, "We will not tolerate any barriers in the way of friendship with China."
However, Sharif claims that the government postponed a cultural celebration planned in He's honour while the country is in mourning.
Militants have also targeted some Chinese citizens in northwest Pakistan and other places.
Rehman, who has long backed the Taliban government in Afghanistan, survived at least two known bomb attacks in 2011 and 2014 when explosions at rallies damaged his car.
The bombing on Sunday was one of the worst to occur in northwest Pakistan in the previous ten years. 147 people were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar in 2014, the majority of them students.
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A Peshawar mosque was bombed in January, killing 74 people. And in February, a bombing at a mosque inside a secure building housing the Peshawar police headquarters left over 100 people dead, the majority of them policemen.