(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Heavily armed militants stormed a Shia mosque in Pakistan Friday, killing at least 20 people in an attack claimed by the Taliban as revenge for the execution of one of their cadres.
Three attackers with grenades, Kalashnikovs and explosive suicide vests struck at the Imamia mosque in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan's restive northwest, around the time of the main Friday prayers.
The attack comes two weeks after a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in southern Pakistan killed 61 people, the deadliest sectarian incident to hit the country in nearly two years.
Nasir Durrani, the police chief of northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of which Peshawar is the capital, told AFP that at least 20 people were killed and 45 others were wounded.
Durrani said that three attackers were also killed in the attack.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack in an email statement, saying it was revenge for a militant known as Doctor Usman, who was hanged in December.
"This is a series of taking blood for blood, which will continue. The government should expect more and even harder responses," the statement said.
Police said the attack began when the militants entered from a nearby building site, cutting barbed wire to get into the mosque compound.
"One suicide bomber exploded himself in the veranda of the mosque while another was shot dead by police inside the main hall," Durrani said.
"The third was caught by people but was also killed later on."
Eyewitness Mohammad Khalil told AFP a "huge explosion" shook the main hall of the mosque as prayers were coming to an end, and then the gunmen started firing on worshippers.
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