ISLAMABAD ( 7 people killed " while praying " at Mosque )

 

ISLAMABAD – Seven people were killed and 55 others hurt Thursday when a bomb went off inside a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Pakistan’s Geo television said.

The blast occurred at the start of afternoon prayers as worshippers were still entering the building, one of the wounded survivors said.

The director of the nearby hospital tending to the injured said several of them were listed in serious condition.

Police and army sappers cordoned off the area to search for additional bombs.

Peshawar is capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan and has become a haven for the Taliban and other jihadists as well as criminal outfits operating on both sides of the frontier.

Terrorism-related deaths in Pakistan increased by 19 percent in 2013 to 2,451, after three consecutive years of declines, according to a recent report from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies.