Death toll from Pakistan bombing rises to 54 as suspicion falls on local Islamic State group chapter

By ABDUL SATTAR
Associated Press

QUETTTA, Pakistan (AP) — The death toll from a bombing in southwestern Pakistan as people celebrated the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday has risen to 54 after two wounded patients died in hospitals overnight. A suspected suicide bomber or bombers blew themselves up Friday among a crowd in the Mastung district. No one has claimed responsibility, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Islamic State group’s regional affiliate. The extremist group carried out an attack days earlier in the same area after one of its commanders was killed there. Also Friday, a blast ripped through a mosque on the premises of a police station in northwestern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least five people.