Pakistan holds funerals as government vows to hunt down those behind the weekend's suicide bombing
Pakistan held funerals on Monday for victims of a massive suicide bombing that targeted a rally of a pro-Taliban cleric the previous day as the death toll climbed to at least 45 and the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack. No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people. Police said their initial investigation suggests the Islamic State group's regional affiliate could be behind the attack.
The victims were all from the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which is headed by hard-line cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan. The IS regional affiliate — known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province — is based in neighboring Afghanistan's Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban.
Bajur was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban — a close ally of Afghanistan's Taliban government — before several Pakistani army offensives that ended in 2016 claimed to have driven them out of the area. The cleric's supporters had gathered in Bajut on Sunday as part of their party's preparations for the next parliamentary elections, expected sometime in October or November after the current parliament's five-year term ends. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve the parliament in August to pave the way for the vote.
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