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The suicide bomber who targeted a mosque inside a police compound in Peshawar, killing more than 80 people, was a member of the Pakistani Taliban disguised as a policeman, a senior official said Thursday.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage shows the suspected bomber arriving at a police checkpoint on a scooter Monday, asking a constable the direction to the mosque, and being let through since he was in uniform, said Moazzam Jah Ansari, police chief of Pakistan\u2019s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a suicide bomber and we have traced his movement. He was in a police uniform,\u201d Ansari said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are closing in on the network. Every life of our martyrs will be avenged,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Officials had previously put the death toll at more than 100, but some of the bodies were counted twice, Ansari said. The blast also injured 217.
\nPolice believe 12 kilograms (26.5 pounds) of explosives were used by the bomber.<\/p>\n
Video footage showed the destroyed walls of the mosque, its glass windows and paneling destroyed by the powerful explosion.<\/p>\n
Emergency workers searched for survivors, but authorities said most of those found under the rubble were already dead.<\/p>\n
The blast Monday highlights the deteriorating security situation in Peshawar, capital of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, and the site of frequent attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP).<\/p>\n
The TTP has sent out conflicting messages about whether it was behind the attack.<\/p>\n
TTP officials Sarbakaf Mohmand and Omar Mukaram Khurasani previously said the blast was \u201crevenge\u201d for the death of TTP militant Khalid Khorasani last year.<\/p>\n
But the TTP\u2019s main spokesperson, Muhammad Khorasani, later denied the group was involved.<\/p>\n
The attack comes during a rocky period for Pakistan, which is also struggling with a cost of living crisis and a faltering economy made worse by devastating floods last year.<\/p>\n