A suicide bomber has struck a Shia mosque in Pakistan’s garrison city of Rawalpindi, killing seven people and wounding several others, police have said.
Police told Al Jazeera that the attacker blew himself up when he was stopped at the gate of the mosque.
The blast occurred as minority Shias gathered in the mosque to distribute alms to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
Witnesses said the explosion was powerful and blew out windows.
Pakistan Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar declared an emergency in all hospitals in the Rawalpindi area.
Nisar condemned the attack and asked law enforcement agencies to provide a report on the incident.
“These kinds of attacks cannot break the will of the people of Pakistan. The whole nation is united against terrorism,” he said in a statement.
Nobody has yet claimed responsibility but fighters linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda have targeted the country’s Shia minority in the past.
A bomb targeting Shia at a volleyball match killed at least four people and injured eight in Pakistan’s restive northwest last Sunday.
The incident happened at the Hussaini ground, owned by the local Shia community in the Kalaya neighbourhood of the Orakzai tribal district.
Pakistan has strengthened its own offensive against the Taliban since their attack on a military-run school on December 16 killed 150 people, 134 of them children.
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The MONSTER sowed in SAUDI ARABIA in the name of ISLAM is CONSUMING the WORLD OVER like WILD FIRE. I fear for this WORLD if WMDs should get to the HANDS of this GUYS.-Guys that are AVENGING for their PROPHET and "god" and yet they BOW 5 times a day to a "god" that can not FIGHT for himself. I cant imagine EL MATOSKY WORSHING such a POWERLESS "god" LAI-LAI ba ze yi baa.
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