PARACHINAR, Pakistan: An explosion apparently targeting a mosque in Pakistan's northwestern city of Parachinar, in a remote area bordering Afghanistan, killed at least 22 people on Friday and wounded dozens, officials said. Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the attack took place near Parachinar's Shiite mosque, which is located near the Noor Market. The banned Islamist militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), often referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, said the blast was part of its operation Ghazi, named after a radical Islamist leader killed by Pakistani security forces in 2007. Mumtaz Hussain, a doctor at the Agency Headquarters Hospital in the region, said five bodies, including a woman and two children, and more than three dozen wounded had been brought to the hospital and an appeal for blood donors had been made. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack saying the government would keep up efforts to "eliminate the menace of terrorism." Slideshow (3 Images)

In a statement, he said: “The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil.”

In the wake of last month’s attack in southern Sindh province, security forces launched a major crackdown across Pakistan, killing or detaining hundreds of suspected militants and closing off the border with Afghanistan for several days.
A bomb targets a mosque in the city of Parachinar near the border with Afghanistan killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens more.