An Islamic State (IS) suicide bomber who killed 64 people at a Shiite mosque in northwest Pakistan last week was an Afghan exile who returned home to train for the attack, police said Wednesday.
There have been warnings Afghanistan could become a recruiting ground and staging post for militants since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 following the hasty withdrawal of US-led forces.
The Taliban have pledged they will not allow Afghan soil to be used to plot attacks on other nations, but in February the UN Security Council said “terrorist groups enjoy greater freedom there than at any time in recent history.”
Two senior Pakistan police officer told AFP that the suicide bomber responsible for Friday’s Peshawar blast had prepared the attack in Afghanistan.
It was claimed by IS, whose Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) affiliate has been active for years in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, where it is in violent competition with the Taliban.
The officials said the attacker was an Afghan national in his 30s who moved to Pakistan with his family decades ago.
“The bomber went [back] to Afghanistan, trained there and returned without informing his family,” one of the senior police officials told AFP.
“Islamic State-Khorasan is becoming a strong threat for us, they are operating from Afghanistan but they have sleeping cells here,” he added.
Taliban officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Muhammad Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), said there was “a lot of apprehension” in the international community over the prospect of Afghanistan becoming a haven for militancy.
While the Taliban can rein in sister groups like Al-Qaeda – which carried out the 9/11 attacks – “they cannot guarantee they will do the same about the groups which are not under their control like IS-K,” Rana said.
“There are a lot of questions on the Taliban’s ability to govern Afghanistan,” he said in a statement.
People transfer victims to a hospital following a blast in Peshawar, Pakistan, on March 4, 2022.Photo:Xinhua
