On the 29th of September in the Mastung district of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, a religious gathering marking the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday was disrupted by a suicide bombing. It resulted in at least 57 individuals losing their lives and a minimum of 58 sustaining injuries. Several of the injured were in critical condition.
The worshippers were congregating at a mosque when the blast broke out. Although no individual group claimed responsibility for the incident, the Pakistani Taliban and ISIS-Khorasan are two outfits known to operate in the region and have carried out parallel attacks in the past.
Hours after the initial attack, an explosion in a mosque in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province during Friday prayers led to a rooftop collapse, killing five additional individuals and leaving many others trapped in the debris.
Among those killed in the Mastung explosion was Mohammad Nawaz, a senior police officer. While terrorism is undeniably the cause, the investigations underway will uncover whether it was a pre-planned suicide attack. Despite the increased security alert, the attack could not be prevented.
Prominent Pakistani officials including the president and the interior minister have strongly condemned these attacks and extended their condolences. In the aftermath of these events, security has been substantially increased around mosques in larger Pakistani cities, particularly during prayer times.
The Balochistan province, rich in natural gas reserves, has largely been a site of bouts of violence. Baloch separatists have maintained a low-scale rebellion in the area for more than two decades, demanding a fairer share of the province’s natural resources. It is also vulnerable to infiltrations and attacks by Islamist militants due to the border it shares with Afghanistan.