ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide attacker detonated a powerful bomb inside a crowded mosque in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 48 people and wounding 100 as they celebrated one of Islam’s major holidays with the country’s former interior minister, state-run media reported.
The bombing was the second assassination attempt in eight months on the official, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, who was the country’s top law enforcement official until last month and who is running for Parliament in elections planned for January.
He was unhurt, but his son and two grandnephews were among the wounded. The local police estimated that hundreds of people had been inside the mosque, a modest white building constructed by the former minister’s family in his ancestral village, Sherpao.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Sherpao said he believed that Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda were responsible. He said that the bomb exploded as he and his relatives prayed in the front row of worshipers.
“It was a massacre,” Mr. Sherpao said, his voice shaking with anger. “I can tell you that.”
After the bombing, police and intelligence agents raided an Islamic school in the nearby village of Turangzai and arrested seven students, some of them Afghans, The Associated Press reported, citing two police officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. The police officials declined to say whether the raid was connected to the suicide bombing.
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