Top religious leader among 6 dead at Pakistan seminary suicide blast

Gulf Today

01-03-2025

A suicide bomber killed six worshippers during Friday prayers at an Islamic seminary in northwestern Pakistan known as a historic training ground for the Afghan Taliban, police and a government spokesman said.
The head of the religious school was among those killed, said provincial government spokesman Muhammad Ali Saif.
"Initial reports suggest the blast occurred after Friday prayers as people were gathering to greet Hamid-ul Haq. It appears to be a suicide attack," Abdul Rasheed, the district police chief, told AFP, adding that four people were killed and 13 wounded in the blast.
Rasheed said that Haqqani, the head of a local rightwing Islamist party, appeared to be the target of the bomber. He was the son of Maulana Sami-ul Haq Haqqani, who was assassinated in 2018 and known as the "father of the Taliban" for teaching the insurgent group's founder Mullah Omar at the same religious school. The
explosion happened as people gathered for weekly Friday prayers, the most important of the week.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attacker, wearing an explosive-laden suicide vest, walked up to Haq as he was leaving a mosque on the premises of the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, his brother Maulana Abdul Haq told Reuters.
"Maulana Hamid-ul Haq ... died on the spot and around two dozen people were injured in the blast," he said.
Regional police officer Najeebur Rahman said earlier that several people were wounded.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the bombing, and expressed sorrow over Haq's death, in a statement issued by his office.
The sprawling campus in Pakistan's Akora Khattak is home to roughly 4,000 students who are fed, clothed and educated for free.
Abdul Mateen Qani, the spokesman for the interor ministry in Kabul, said the government "strongly condemn the attack" and blamed it on Daesh group.