26 deaths at a funeral

At least 26 people were killed and more than 63 others injured in a suicide attack on a funeral attended by leaders of an anti-Taliban militia in the Peero Samarbagh village of Lower Dir on Thursday.
The condition of several injured victims was stated to be precarious and police are apprehensive that the number of casualties could increase. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in reaction to the formation of the local lashkar. The attacker struck as mourners were preparing for prayers being held in open ground near corn fields. The suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of hundreds of people offering funeral prayers for Malik Bakht Sultan, nephew of former Kunar (Afghanistan) governor Malik Zarin, who was also killed along with his bodyguards and aides in a suicide attack across the border in Afghanistan a couple of months ago. Senior police official Salim Khan Marwat said the bomber targeted members of a state-sponsored anti-Taliban militia operating in the area. He said the bomber’s head had been retrieved from the scene and indicated that the attacker, who had hidden in the nearby fields, was in his late teens.
Police and eyewitnesses said dead bodies, injured people and body parts were scattered at the site of the explosion as locals rushed the seriously injured to Civil Hospital Samarbagh. Police and volunteers contributed to the rescue activities. The owner of a medical store in Jandol described scenes of bloody devastation following the explosion. “I could see pools of blood everywhere on the ground with pieces of flesh… lying on the ground,” said store owner Zahoor Khan. “There were mutilated bodies everywhere… People were collecting the remains of the dead in bed sheets and these scenes were very disturbing,” he added. Khanzeb, an official in Samarbagh Police Station, told Pakistan Today the identity of five of those killed was yet to be determined. He said more than 50 of those injured had been admitted to District Headquarters Hospital. Officials confirmed the reemergence of Taliban militants in this particular part of Lower Dir, which is close to the Pak-Afghan border.