Pakistan's capital was hit by a suicide attack on Friday during weekly prayers. An attacker, “blocked at the entrance” of a mosque, “blew himself up,” according to a security source who requested anonymity, killing more than 30 people.

Published on: 02/06/2026 - 1:57 p.m.

A suicide attack during weekly prayers on Friday February 6 in a Shiite mosque in Islamabad left more than 30 dead and at least 130 injured, a Pakistani police source told AFP.

The attack occurred when the country's mosques were crowded, a senior police official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The toll "should rise further", according to the same source. The targeted mosque is located in the Tarlai district. A previous report reported 20 dead and 90 injured.

Previously, a security source who also requested anonymity told AFP that the explosion was due to a suicide attack. “The attacker was blocked at the entrance and blew himself up,” this source told AFP.

No claim

Pakistan is a majority Sunni country, but Shiites make up between 10 and 15 percent of the population and have been targeted in the past by jihadist groups.

AFP journalists saw dozens of people arriving at a large hospital with bloodstained clothes and wounds. Doctors and bystanders helped victims being transported by ambulances. At least one victim arrived in the trunk of a car, according to AFP journalists.

Friends and relatives of the injured screamed when they arrived at the hospital's heavily guarded emergency department.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif "strongly condemned" the attack and assured that its perpetrators would be found and brought to justice.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes as Pakistani security forces battle intensifying insurgencies in the country's southern and northern provinces on the border with Afghanistan.

Bilateral relations with Kabul deteriorated

Islamabad says armed separatist groups from Balochistan, the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamist militants from the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, near Islamabad, are using Afghan territory as a safe haven to launch their attacks.

The Afghan Taliban government has repeatedly denied the accusations and bilateral relations have deteriorated. Furthermore, the forces of the two countries regularly clash along the border.

The last major attack in Islamabad took place in November, when a suicide bombing outside a courthouse killed 12 people and injured dozens more, the first such event to hit the capital in almost three years.

Read also: Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions: the Taliban want to free themselves from the supervision of Islamabad

Pakistani forces are also under pressure in Balochistan, where attacks claimed by separatist insurgents killed 36 civilians and 22 security forces last week.

These attacks triggered a wave of counter-operations in which, according to authorities, security forces killed nearly 200 militants.

On November 11, twelve people were killed and 27 others injured by a suicide bomber in Islamabad, an unclaimed attack.

With AFP and Reuters

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