On 16th September 2016, at least 25 people were killed and 30 injured after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque during Friday prayers in a village in Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in North West Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan. The attack was carried out by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar (TTP-JA), a splinter group of the Pakistan Taliban, as revenge on local tribesmen for capturing and handing over their militants to the government, claimed TTP-JA spokesperson Ehsan Eshanullah.
The assistant administrator for Mohmand Agency, Naveed Akbar, stated that two children under 10 were killed and four children under 10 were injured in the explosion at one of the largest mosques in the area. The official said that the suicide bomber detonated his device inside the packed hall of the mosque, which has a capacity of 100 to 150 people. Body parts were found scattered around the hall.
In 2014, the Pakistan Army launched a military operation against insurgents and other militant groups in the other parts of the tribal areas, including Waziristan. Many of these groups were driven into Afghanistan and took up arms against the Kabul government, some in alliance with Islamic State militants. While security in Pakistan has improved in recent years, with “terrorist incidents” dropping from 128 to 74 last year, military sources report that extremists continue to stage major attacks. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, has condemned the bombing and stated that the “attacks by terrorists cannot shatter the government's resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country."
For more info, read:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-attack-idUSKCN11M141
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/suicide-bomber-hits-mosque-in-pakistan-killing-at-least-16/2016/09/16/b823bdd6-7c03-11e6-bd86-b7bbd53d2b5d_story.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/16/asia/pakistan-suicide-attack
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pakistan-mosque-bombing-latest-mohmand-agency-killed-suicide-blast-friday-prayers-claim-a7310986.html
http://www.dw.com/en/suicide-bomber-targets-crowded-mosque-in-pakistan/a-19557433
