Pakistan hospital attack toll rises

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Pakistan's Taliban group has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack at a hospital emergency unit that left 32 people dead.

Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reported those killed in the Tuesday attack at the District Headquarters Hospital in the Dera Ismail Khan district in the troubled North-West Frontier province included seven police officers and two health officials.

Police said a suicide bomber blew himself up near the hospital's emergency ward where a Shiite Muslim crowd had assembled to mourn the death of local Shiite leader Basit Ali, who was brought to the hospital after being shot by a gunman earlier in the day.

The hospital unit was destroyed by the explosion, the newspaper said. About a dozen of those injured were in critical condition.

Dawn reported Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack through its spokesman Maulvi Omar.

Those killed were mostly relatives of the slain Shiite leader, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.

It quoted a Taliban spokesman as warning his group would carry out more attacks if Pakistani military operations against militants in the tribal areas did not stop.

The attack comes amid rising sectarian tension between the Sunni and Shiite communities in the region, resulting in several killing in recent weeks, Dawn reported.