The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack during Friday prayers at a Shiite mosque in Islamabad that left at least 31 people dead, the SITE Intelligence Group reported Friday.

Published on: 02/07/2026 - 07:56 Modified on: 02/07/2026 - 08:57

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The jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the suicide attack which left at least 31 dead and nearly 170 injured on Friday February 6 in a Shiite mosque in Islamabad, the deadliest attack in the Pakistani capital since 2008.

The attack in the Tarlai district on the outskirts of Islamabad occurred as mosques across the country were packed with worshipers for the major weekly prayer.

The Islamabad Municipality said 31 people died in the blast. But the toll "is likely to rise further", according to a senior police officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

The IS claim was reported by the SITE Intelligence Group overnight from Friday to Saturday.

A local fighter "fired at the mosque guards who were trying to arrest him then detonated his suicide bomber in the middle of the congregation", we can read in the armed group's statement cited by the organization specializing in monitoring Islamist websites.

“The attacker was blocked at the entrance and blew himself up,” a security source who requested anonymity also told AFP.

This attack is the deadliest in the Pakistani capital since September 2008, when 60 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb attack against the luxury Marriott hotel.

“Shiite mosques are constantly threatened”

The funerals of some of the 31 people killed in the suicide attack will take place on Saturday in the Pakistani capital, still in shock.

Muhammad Kazim, 52, was in the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque targeted by the attack.

"During the first recitation of the namaz (ritual prayer), we heard gunshots," he told AFP outside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital, where many injured people were admitted. “While we were still leaning, an explosion rang out.”

He escaped unscathed. “The explosion was extremely powerful,” he described. “Debris fell from the roof, the windows were shattered (...). When I came out, there were many bodies scattered.”

Muhammad Kazim criticized the lack of security at the mosque: "Shia mosques are under constant threat, and the government should take this problem seriously."

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

Pools of blood, shoes and clothes

AFP journalists saw dozens of people, including children, arrive at PIMS on Friday with bloodstained clothes and wounds. At least one victim arrived in the trunk of a car.

Another team of AFP journalists saw armed security forces outside the mosque, where pools of blood were visible. Shoes, clothes and broken glass littered the ground.

Videos posted on social networks, the authenticity of which AFP has not yet been able to verify, show several bodies lying near the main entrance to the mosque, as well as people and debris scattered in the prayer room covered with a red carpet.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, according to his spokesperson, that "attacks on civilians and places of worship (were) unacceptable." Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif "strongly condemned" the attack, saying its perpetrators would be found and tried.

Pakistani forces under pressure

The attack comes as Pakistani security forces battle intensifying insurgencies in the country's southern and northern provinces, bordering Afghanistan.

The last major attack in Islamabad took place in November 2025, when a suicide bombing in front of a court claimed the lives of 12 people and left dozens injured. It was then the first event of this type to hit the capital in almost three years.

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 insurgents.

With AFP

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