Lahore, Islamabad: A prominent anti-Taliban cleric and 10 others were killed and nearly 100 injured when suicide bombers struck at the compound of a religious group in Lahore and a mosque in an army supply depot in northwestern Pakistani city of Nowshera on Friday.
Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi, an outspoken critic of the Taliban who played a key role in bringing together clerics to issue a fatwa declaring suicide bombings as un-Islamic, was killed with at least three other persons when a suicide attacker targeted the compound of the Jamia Naeemia organisation in eastern city of Lahore.
The attack occurred shortly after the end of Friday prayers at Jamia Naeemia mosque. The teenaged bomber rushed through a large number of people leaving the mosque and barged into Naeemi's office, where he detonated his explosives.
Naeemi sustained serious injuries and died while being taken to a nearby hospital. His close aide Maulana Khalil-ur-Rehman was also killed. At least a dozen people were injured in the attack.
In another brazen attack in Peshawar, car-borne militants sprayed the heavily-guarded house of Lt Gen Masood Aslam, the army commander heading the military offensive against Taliban, with gunfire triggering a gun battle that left two militants dead and two persons wounded, officials said.
In Nowshera, six persons were killed and over 90 injured when a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden truck into a mosque in an army supply depot.