At least 57 are dead and more than 100 wounded after a Friday explosion devastated a Shiite mosque in northwestern Pakistan, The New York Times reports, per Pakistani police and doctors.
Authorities are not entirely sure yet what happened, but believe at least one gunman attacked police officers "before entering the mosque and detonating what appeared to be a suicide vest," the Times writes. Pakistani intelligence officials believe the attack was most likely the responsibility of ISIS-K, though a party has yet to take ownership. A tweet from the Pakistani police said one officer was killed and another was critically wounded.
"We have secured CCTV footage and will be examining it very closely," said Peshawar Police Chief Ejaz Khan, who noted there seemed to be two involved individuals, both of whom were wearing explosives.
"A blast struck the mosque during Friday prayers, and gunmen stormed inside, opening fire on worshipers packed into the main hall," officials added, per The Washington Post.
The Friday violence was some of the deadliest to hit Peshawar — "a city of roughly two million people near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan" — in over seven years, adds the Times and the Post.
"It was a horrible scene," Jahanzeb Sarhadi, who lives near the mosque, told the Post. When Sarhadi reached the area, "there were many injured people lying on the floor crying for help. I saw many dead bodies, scattered body parts, and the floor was covered with blood," he went on. Read more at The New York Times and The Washington Post.