Explosions and gunfire at Pakistan prayer hall

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/13/deadly-fighting-breaks-out-pakistan-mosque-peshawar

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The Pakistani Taliban continued their deadly sectarian campaign on Friday with an assault by suicide attackers on a packed prayer hall full of Shia worshippers that left 19 dead.

A further 40 people were injured when up to five militants stormed the Imamia Masjid Imambargah in central Peshawar, the troubled city in Pakistan’s north-west where more than 130 teenage boys were killed in December’s Army Public School massacre.

The attack was launched during Friday prayers, the busiest moment of the week, and executed by young men carrying grenades, assault rifles and suicide bomb vests.

The provincial police chief Nasir Durrani said the men avoided guards on the main gate of the hall by climbing over a wall from a neighbouring construction site and cutting through barbed wire.

Security had been posted at the entrance as the compound is an obvious target for sectarian terrorists and close to various government buildings.

Two men died after detonating their bombs and another three were killed by worshippers, according to Durrani.

“People here showed great courage. They grabbed one of the attackers from his neck, and he couldn’t detonate [his explosives], and he was shot and killed,” Durrani said.

Local television showed chaotic scenes of worshippers fleeing the ongoing attack, some carrying the injured to safety.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the country’s largest militant alliance, immediately claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for the execution by the government of a militant known as Dr Usman, a former army medic involved in a 2009 attack on the army’s headquarters.

Pakistan dropped an informal moratorium on the death penalty amid national outrage over the Peshawar school massacre, and several prisoners who had been on death row have been executed.

The December school attack prompted the government to launch a 20-point strategy to tackle the terrorism and extremism that has plagued the country for years.

There were promises to regulate religious seminaries and ban militant groups, and the army continues to fight against the TTP in North Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan.

The military claims the operation is a success and has helped improve security in the country. There has been a significant fall in violence following the military campaign in North Waziristan but the country remains vulnerable.

The TTP says it is fighting to turn Pakistan into a strict sharia law state, although it also regularly launches sectarian attacks against Shias.

Friday’s incident came two weeks after the bombing of another Shia imambargah in southern Pakistan, which killed 61 people and was the deadliest sectarian attack in two years.

The country’s leading Shia community groups declared three days of national mourning on Friday.