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Pakistan Bomb Kills Dozens

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

ISLAMABAD (Worthy News) – Officials say a powerful bomb ripped through a rally by supporters of a hard-line cleric and political leader in Pakistan’s northwestern Bajur district that borders Afghanistan on Sunday, killing dozens of people.

At least 40 people were killed and more than 100 wounded, authorities confirmed.

Senior police officer Nazir Khan said the blast happened while the workers’ convention of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam party took place on the outskirts of Khar, the capital of Bajur district.

Bajur used to be a haven for Islamic militants. It is the former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, a militant group that is a close ally of the Taliban government of Afghanistan.

Christians have been among those suffering from attacks by the TTP in Pakistan, an Islamic nation.

However, the TTP was in recent years evicted from the area due to operations by the Pakistani military.

In a statement, the TTP condemned the bombing, saying it was aimed at pitching Islamists against each other.

‘CRIMES NOT JUSTIFIED’

Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, also condemned the bombing.

“Such crimes cannot be justified in any way,” he said on social media.

The blast impacted many people, with footage showing wounded people being carried from the scene in the chaotic aftermath of the explosion.

Sunday’s bombing was one of the four worst attacks in the northwest since 2014, when 147 people, mostly schoolchildren, were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.

In January, 74 people were killed in a bombing at a mosque in Peshawar.

More than 100 people, mostly police officers, died in a bombing at the city’s mosque at police headquarters in February this year.