Suicide blast in Pakistan mosque kills at least 50

"So far we have counted 48 bodies," Tariq Hayat Khan, the top administrator in the Khyber region in the northwest of the country, told reporters on Friday.
The death toll could rise, perhaps to 70, he said. About 70 wounded had been taken to hospitals, he said.

"It was a suicide attack. The bomber was standing in the mosque. It's a two-storey building and it has collapsed," he said.
Police were digging in the rubble for any survivors after the blast ripped through the the mosque in Jamrud, Bakhtiar Khan, a local government official, said.

Zeina Khodr, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said: "The death toll is expected to rise because the mosque was packed with up to 250 worshippers.
"Rescue efforts are continuing, people are actually using their hands to find survivors who are stuck underneath the rubble."

Foreign hands
She said many of those killed were members of the security forces.

The mosque is near a police checkpoint and "people in that checkpoint usually pray in this mosque", said Khodr.
"But the political agents are saying that, and I quote, 'no Muslim could carry out such a crime suggesting that foreign hands were responsible'," she said.

Rising violence in Pakistan's northwest is fueling doubts about the country's ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters blamed for attacks also in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Jamrud lies in the Khyber region, where fighters have intensified attacks on lorries carrying supplies to Nato and US forces in Afghanistan.