A least 50 people were killed when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb packed with ball bearings and nails during Eid prayers in a mosque inside the residential compound of Pakistan’s former interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao.This was the second suicide attack in eight months apparently targeting the former minister, who escaped injury. One of his sons and a nephew was wounded in today’s bombing in the PML(Q) leader’s native Sherpao village in Charsadda district in the restive North West Frontier Province.Witnesses said the dead included police officers guarding Sherpao, who was praying in the mosque’s front row. Suspicion is likely to focus on the pro-Taliban or al-Qaeda militants active in the region. The attack also deepened the sense of uncertainty in Pakistan as it heads into parliamentary elections on January 8. Sherpao is a candidate for Parliament.Hours after the bombing, security officers raided an Islamic school in the nearby village of Turangzai and arrested seven students, some of them Afghans, said police officials. They declined to say whether the raid was connected to the attack.“We were saying prayers when this huge explosion occurred,” said Shaukat Ali, a 26-year-old survivor of the blast whose white cloak and pants were torn and spattered with blood.The bomber was praying in a row of worshippers when he detonated the explosive, provincial police chief Sharif Virk said. Hundreds of people were in or around the mosque, about 40 yards from Sherpao’s house, witnesses said.District mayor Farman Ali Khan said between 50 and 55 people were killed, and authorities were collecting information on their identities. Local police chief Feroz Shah said over 100 were wounded.The hospital in Peshawar was wracked with chaos as the injured arrived in pick-up trucks, ambulance sirens wailed and the wounded screamed for help. The bomb contained between 13-17 pounds of explosives and was filled with nails and ball bearings to maximize casualties, said officials.Iqbal Hussain, a police officer in charge of security at the mosque, said all those who entered had been made to pass through a body scanner and were searched with metal and explosive detectors.Hamid Nawaz, the current Interior Minister, maintained there was no security lapse. “All possible care had been taken, there was no lapse as such. but such an incident can happen at such a gathering,” Nawaz said on Aaj TV.After the blast, Sherpao’s house was protected by about a dozen armed police and paramilitary troops. Sherpao was Interior Minister in the administration recently dissolved ahead of the parliamentary elections. He is head of the Pakistan People’s Party-Sherpao.President Pervez Musharraf condemned the blast and directed security and intelligence agencies to track down the masterminds, the state Associated Press of Pakistan reported.In April, Sherpao was slightly wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a rally for his political party in the nearby town of Charsadda, killing at least 28 people.
