Pakistan buries dead from massive suicide attack at political rally

Hundreds of mourners attended funerals Monday after a massive suicide bombing killed at least 54 people at an election rally for a pro-Taliban cleric, carrying caskets draped in colorful clothes to burial sites in the hills.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which killed at least five children and wounded nearly 200 people.
The attack appeared to reflect divisions between Islamist groups, which have a strong presence in areas like Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.
It targeted a political party with ties to the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban.
At 1,000 people, according to police, were crowded into a tent near a market for a rally organized by the Jamiat Ulema Islam party as it prepared for fall elections.
According to witnesses they heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances arrived and began taking the wounded away.
Police said their initial investigation suggested that the Islamic State group’s regional affiliate, a rival of the Taliban, could be responsible, while a Pakistan security analyst pointed to breakaway factions of the Pakistan Taliban as possible suspects.