(Adnkronos) – The provisional death toll of a suicide attack carried out during Friday prayers in northwestern Pakistan is at least four dead. Local media report it. Among the victims, according to The Express Tribune newspaper, is the leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Samiul Haq (Jui-S), Hamidul Haq Haqqani. Several injured.
The explosion took place in the mosque located inside the Darul Uloom Haqqania complex (Koranic school), in the Nowshera district, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Hamidul Haq Haqqani is the son of Samiul Haq Haqqani, an influential religious and political leader known as the ‘spiritual father of the Taliban’, founder of Jui-S, killed in Rawalpindi on November 2 seven years ago, local media recall. Hamidul Haq Haqqani was among the deputies of the National Assembly of Islamabad from 2002 to 2007, he was the number two of Darul Uloom Haqqania and took the leadership of Jui-S after the killing of his father.
In the past, the madrasa, which remembers being founded by maulana Abdul Haq Haqqani, had been at the center of the news because – the Dawn newspaper recalls – its students were accused of having played a role in the 2007 murder of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The madrasa had denied any connection with the suspects. According to the BBC, which in the past had spoken of Darul Uloom Haqqania as a ‘university of jihad’, several Taliban leaders have studied here.
