A top police chief in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has revealed that a suicide bomber who blew himself up on Monday in a deadly attack on a Peshawar mosque had entered the high-security mosque compound disguised as a policeman.
Moazzam Jah Ansari, the police inspector general for the province, in a press conference on Thursday said security camera footage showed the bomber entering the heavily fortified police compound surrounding the mosque on a motorbike.
The policemen deployed at the entrance of the compound failed to “check the bomber because they thought he was their own”, he said.
“We have traced the suicide bomber … He was in a police uniform and was wearing a mask and a helmet,” Ansari said.
Ansari said that the bomber entered the main gate of the compound and asked police officers for directions to the mosque, where he detonated a bomb which killed at least 101 people, mostly police.
“This means that the attacker was not aware of the area. He was given a target and there is an entire network behind him … he was not a lone wolf,” Ansari said.
