This story will continue to be updated as details emerge.
Police called off the search Tuesday for survivors of the deadly terrorist attack on a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Pakistan. The suicide bombing attack killed at least 100 people and injured 225.
The death toll makes “it one of the deadliest attacks ever carried out against Pakistan’s security forces,” The Washington Post reported.
According to The Associated Press, the majority of the casualties in Monday’s attack were police officers. More than 300 people were inside the mosque praying “when the bomber set off his explosives vest,” per AP News.
“The brutal killing of Muslims prostrating before Allah is against the teachings of the Quran,” Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement, per CNN. He also said that attackers “targeting the House of Allah is proof that the attackers have nothing to do with Islam.”
A video going around on social media shows a wall caving in at the mosque, BBC reported. Rescue operations are underway in the mosque.
“Currently our priority is to save people buried under the debris,” Peshawar city Deputy Commissioner Shafiullah Khan told BBC.
Who claimed responsibility for Pakistan mosque bombing?
Initially, Commander Sarbakaf Mohmand for the Pakistani Taliban took responsibility for the bombing on Twitter, AP News reported.
However, later that day, Pakistani Taliban spokesperson Mohammad Khurasani said it was not the group’s “policy to target mosques, seminaries and religious places.”
Authorities have yet to determine who was behind the bombing.
According to The New York Times, “a peace deal between Pakistani Taliban and the government broke down last year, and the resurgence of the Pakistani Taliban has strained relations between the countries.
“Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan,” Sharif said in a statement, per the Times.