Pakistan Islamabad Mosque Blast Live Updates: Islamic State affiliate claims responsibility for suicide blast that killed 31, four arrested
Pakistan Islamabad News Live Updates: Pakistani security officials examine the site of of a bomb explosion at a Shiite mosque, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Source: AP/PTI)
Islamabad Blast News Live Updates: Islamic State in Pakistan, an affiliate of the IS group, claimed responsibility overnight for a deadly suicide bombing inside a Shia mosque on the outskirts of Pakistan’s capital that killed 31 people and wounded 169 others. An IS-affiliated news agency said the attacker arrived, opened fire on security guards who tried to stop him at the main gate and detonated his explosive vest after reaching the mosque’s inner gate of the imambargah. Pakistan’s Minister of Interior Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi said that four people who helped facilitate the suicide bomber have been arrested, Reuters reported.
Identity of attacker and arrests: According to authorities, the suicide bomber was a Pakistani national who had recently traveled to Afghanistan, news agency AP reported. Authorities said several suspects, including the brother, mother and other relatives of the bomber, were arrested during overnight raids in Islamabad and in northwestern Pakistan, and that a police officer was killed in the operation. Local media reported on Saturday a breakthrough in the investigation, with the arrest of an alleged Afghan with IS accused of masterminding the attack.
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Rationale of the attackers: Shia Muslims, who form a minority of Pakistan’s population, are often victims of sectarian violence, including attacks by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Islamic State in Pakistan – Sunni Islamist militant groups – which consider them heretics. The Islamic State group suggested it viewed the Pakistani Shiites as legitimate targets, calling them a “human reservoir” that provided recruits to Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State in Syria.
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