Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has announced that the mastermind and all key facilitators involved in the suicide bombing in mosque in Islamabad have been arrested, claiming that the attack was planned and the bomber trained by ISIS in Afghanistan, with funding provided by India.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Naqvi said the attack had plunged the entire nation into grief. “Yesterday was a day of sorrow for all of Pakistan. Every household felt the pain. The incident shook us deeply,” he said.
The interior minister stated that immediately after the blast, all security agencies moved into action and conducted overnight operations. Raids were carried out in Peshawar and Nowshera soon after the attack, leading to the arrest of all individuals linked to the incident, including the Afghan national identified as the mastermind.
He added that several security personnel were injured during the operations and one assistant sub-inspector (ASI) was martyred.
Naqvi said investigations revealed that the attacker had received training in Afghanistan. “When we traced the bomber after the attack, his travel history clearly showed movement to Afghanistan,” he said, reiterating that militant groups including the TTP and ISIS were working together.
He claimed that at least 21 terrorist organisations were currently operating from Afghan territory and that terrorism inside Pakistan was being orchestrated from across the border.
He further said the attackers had conducted reconnaissance of the mosque before carrying out the bombing.
“We are in a state of war, whether it is Balochistan or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Naqvi said, adding that Pakistan’s security forces were preventing the vast majority of attacks. “If one attack succeeds, I can say with confidence that 99 others are being foiled.”
The interior minister said the world had acknowledged the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) as a terrorist organisation, stressing that in times of war there was no room for ambiguity. “An enemy is an enemy. We are clear about that and will continue to fight this war,” he said, warning that terrorism was increasingly becoming a regional issue that the international community needed to recognise.
