Taliban attack Shia mosque in Peshawar, 19 killed

PESHAWAR, Feb 13 (agencies): Taliban militants have attacked worshippers at a Shia mosque in the Pakistani city of Peshawar with guns and grenades, killing at least 19.

Police killed one of the militants in a gunfight around the mosque, in the wealthy Hayatabad district.

Another of the militants blew himself up with a suicide vest, and a third was arrested, police said.

Two weeks ago, another attack on a Shia mosque in Sindh province's Shikarpur district left more than 60 people dead.

Sunni militants linked to the Taliban said they had carried out the Shikarpur attack, which was the deadliest in years.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed his grief for the loss of life and said that the government remained committed to "eradicating the menace of terrorism".

Over the past decade, Pakistan has experienced an increasing number of sectarian attacks.

Three attackers with grenades, Kalashnikovs and explosive suicide vests struck at the Imamia mosque in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan's restive northwest, around the time of the main Friday prayers.

The attack comes two weeks after a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan killed 61 people, the deadliest sectarian incident to hit the country in nearly two years.

Shehram Tarakai, the health minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital, told AFP the incident had left a total of 19 people dead, including the three militants, as well as 67 wounded.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack in an email statement, saying it was revenge for a militant known as Doctor Usman, who was hanged in December.

"This is a series of taking blood for blood, which will continue. The government should expect more and even harder responses," the statement said.

Police said the attack began when the militants entered from a nearby building site, cutting barbed wire to get into the mosque compound.

"One suicide bomber exploded himself in the verandah of the mosque while another was shot dead by police inside the main hall," Nasir Durrani, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief, told AFP.

"The third was caught by people but was also killed later on."

Eyewitness Mohammad Khalil told AFP a "huge explosion" shook the main hall of the mosque as prayers were coming to an end, and then the gunmen started firing on worshippers.

TV footage in the immediate aftermath showed people running away from the scene, some carrying injured on their shoulders, others limping, as police fired shots and checked people at a barrier.

The mosque is close to several government buildings including the offices of the Federal Investigation Agency and passport agency.

Since June last year the army has been waging a major campaign against strongholds of TTP and other militants in the North Waziristan tribal area, which lies close to Peshawar.

The military has heralded the success of the operation, which it says has killed more than 2,000 militants, though the precise number and identity of those killed cannot be verified independently.

The country has stepped up its fight against militants since Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150 people, most of them children, at a school in Peshawar in December.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended a six-year moratorium on the death penalty and Doctor Usman, also known as Aqil, was one of the first to go to the gallows.

He was convicted for an attack on the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and was arrested after being injured.

Pakistan has suffered a rising tide of sectarian violence in recent years, most of it perpetrated by hardline Sunni Muslim groups against minority Shiite Muslims, who make up around a fifth of the population.

The suicide bombing at a mosque in southern Sindh province on January 30 was the deadliest sectarian attack in Pakistan since February 2013, when 89 were killed in a market bombing in the southwestern city of Quetta.

Anti-Shiite attacks have been increasing in recent years in Karachi, Quetta, the northwestern area of Parachinar and the far-northeastern town of Gilgit.