Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on February 28, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 25, 2026
A suicide bomber killed six, including a Taliban-linked cleric, at a Pakistani seminary. The attack highlights ongoing regional tensions.
By Mushtaq Ali
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed six worshippers during Friday prayers at an Islamic seminary in northwestern Pakistan known as a historic training ground for the Afghan Taliban, police and a government spokesman said.
The head of the religious school was among those killed, said provincial government spokesman Muhammad Ali Saif.
The dead man, Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq, was the son of the late Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, considered the father of the Taliban.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attacker, wearing an explosive-laden suicide vest, walked up to Haq as he was leaving a mosque on the premises of the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, his brother Maulana Abdul Haq told Reuters.
"Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq... died on the spot and around two dozen people were injured in the blast," he said.
Regional police officer Najeebur Rahman said earlier that several people were wounded.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing, and expressed sorrow over Haq's death, in a statement issued by his office.
Tucked away in a dusty Pakistani town off the main motorway leading to the Afghan border, Darul Uloom Haqqania university was the launch pad for the Taliban movement in the 1990s. It is still often described as an incubator for radical Islamists.
Pakistan is battling twin insurgencies, one mounted by Islamists and the other by ethnic militants seeking secession over what they say is the government's unfair division of natural resources.
(Reporting by Mushtaq Ali and Asif Shahzad; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by YP Rajesh, Saad Sayeed, Kevin Liffey and Frances Kerry)
A suicide bomber killed six worshippers during Friday prayers at an Islamic seminary in Peshawar, Pakistan. The head of the religious school, Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq, was among those killed.
Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq was the head of the Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary and the son of Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, who is considered the father of the Taliban.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing and expressed sorrow over the death of Maulana Hamid-ul-Haq in a statement issued by his office.
The Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary is known as a historic training ground for the Taliban and was a launch pad for the Taliban movement in the 1990s.
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