On the morning of February 6, 2026, a tragedy struck the Imambargah Khadijah-tul-Kubra, a mosque for Shiite Muslim worshippers located in the Shehzad Town region of Islamabad, Pakistan. The tragedy came in the form of a suicide bombing that struck the mosque while the congregation were conducting their weekly Friday prayers. According to official reports from the bombing incident, the attack killed a minimum of 31 people and left 169 others wounded. According to intelligence officials, the bomber was intercepted by the mosque guards but managed to fire his gun before detonating the explosives placed at the back of the congregation.
In its immediate aftermath, the Pakistani government made some scathing charges against other neighbouring countries. In this regard, Mosharraf Zaidi, who was the spokesman for Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif and Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, made accusations against terrorist proxies from India and Afghanistan for carrying out the bombing. They claimed the bombing was an attempt to disrupt Pakistan’s economic revival and weaken its diplomatic standing.
As a response to this situation, the Indian government has encouraged Pakistan to confront its domestic security issues as well as the rising threat of homegrown extremist groups in that country. New Delhi argues that the tendency to immediately accuse India of security blunders within its own nation amounts to an old trick that the Pakistani government has been using to shift the attention of its citizens away from domestic administrative failures. India hastened to condemn the attacks but simultaneously rejected Pakistani charges as baseless and pointless. In this regard, India issued a statement from its External Affairs Ministry expressing its regret over the attacks but criticising Pakistan’s government for deluding itself by trying to blame others for its internal security problems, and India pointed out that these charges have no factual basis.
This recent diplomatic crisis is a clear example of the simmering tensions in the area, in which another humanitarian disaster has led to charges and denials of sponsoring terror operations.
