Pakistan mosque suicide bomber 'was in police uniform'

The suicide bomber who killed more than 90 police officers at a mosque inside a sensitive compound in Pakistan earlier this week entered wearing a uniform and helmet, a provincial police chief said on Thursday.

Hundreds of police were attending afternoon prayers inside what should have been a tightly controlled police headquarters in the northwest city of Peshawar on Monday when the blast erupted, causing a wall to collapse and crush officers.

"Those on duty didn't check him because he was in a police uniform... It was a security lapse," Moazzam Jah Ansari, the head of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial police force, told a news conference.

The suspect is shown in CCTV images arriving at the gates on a motorcycle before walking through a security checkpoint and asking officers where the mosque was located.

Authorities are investigating how a major breach could happen in one of the most sensitive areas in the city, which houses the intelligence and counter-terrorism bureaus.

"Our comrades were martyred in this uniform, but the bomber made it worthless for us," Amanullah Khan, a police officer on duty at a checkpoint in Peshawar, wearing a bulletproof jacket and a helmet with a Kalashnikov in his hands, told AFP.

"Now I will doubt the uniformed officials as well as other people, which is very sad and which has created a distrust."

It is Pakistan's deadliest assault in several years and the worst since violence began to resurge in the northwest bordering Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 2021.

On Thursday, police officials revised down the death toll, putting it at 83 policemen and one woman civilian, after saying there was confusion in registering bodies.