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England clung on to beat Nepal by four runs in a last-ball thriller in Mumbai on Sunday and avoid one of the biggest upsets in the history of the T20 World Cup.Chasing an imposing 185 to win, Nepal’s Lokesh Bam (39 not out) needed a six off the final delivery of the match bowled by Sam Curran but could only club the ball to deep cover for a single.It was an agonising end to a valiant run chase by the cricketing minnows, who put England’s premier bowlers Jofra Archer and Adil Rashid to the sword.Jacob Bethell (55) and Harry Brook (53) scored quick fifties for England but it was a late cameo by Will Jacks that took them to 184-7 in the Group C match, a total that proved just out of reach.Jacks smashed three spectacular sixes off the final over from Karan KC to finish 39 not out off 18 balls .Nepal fell just short at 180-6, despite being roared on by most of the spectators in a three-quarters full Wankhede stadium.They got off to a flying start in their chase, Kushal Bhurtel crunching 29 off 17 balls before Jacks had him caught and bowled.Captain Rohit Paudel and Dipendra Singh Airee came together at 42-2 and brought up Nepal’s 100 in the 12th over.Pace man Archer, who conceded 14 off his first over, was brought back and put the brakes on, conceding just six runs from his next two overs. But the Nepali batsmen took to Rashid at the other end, launching the leg-spinner for 19 off his third over with Airee hitting two sixes and a four. He finished with 0-42 from three overs.The blitz left Nepal needing 62 off the last six overs with eight wickets in hand.Left-arm seamer Curran returned and immediately got the vital breakthrough, ending the 82-run partnership for the third wicket when Airee holed out to Tom Banton for 44.The wicket slowed Nepal’s charge and Paudel on 39 then swept Liam Dawson to Phil Salt at deep midwicket to leave them 126-4 in the 16th over.Archer came back for a final over and proved expensive again, being thrashed for three sixes and 22 runs by Lokesh to leave Nepal 24 off 12 balls for an unlikely win.Dawson was the pick of England’s bowlers with 2-21 while Archer had 1-42 from his four as England just held on.

India and Malaysia pledged Sunday to deepen their semiconductor partnership as the Indian Ocean neighbours ramp up trade and security links during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.Modi touched down in Malaysia on Saturday, his first visit in more than a decade, where he inked a number of agreements with Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim, including deals on renewable energy, health care and artificial intelligence.”Along with AI and digital technologies, we will advance our partnership in semiconductors, health, and food security,” Modi said.”This meeting and these exchanges are very vital, very strategic and critical to advance and enhance relations between India and Malaysia,” Anwar added at a news conference in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya.Malaysia ranks sixth in worldwide exports of semiconductors, while the sector contributes around 25 percent of gross domestic product, according to Malaysian government figures.India’s foreign ministry said the Southeast Asian nation had a “very strong semiconductor ecosystem”.”They have almost 30 to 40 years of experience in those areas,” the ministry added in a statement ahead of Modi’s arrival.”Our companies are… interested in collaborating with Malaysia,” it said, including in research and development and building manufacturing and testing plants.For instance, Tata Electronics was in talks last June with global semiconductor companies to buy a fabrication or outsourced semiconductor assembly or test plant in Malaysia, Indian and Malaysian news reports said at the time.Last year India exported $7.32 billion in goods, mainly in engineering and petroleum products, said the India Brand Equity Foundation.Imports from Malaysia amounted to $12.54 billion, mainly minerals, vegetable oil and electrical machinery and equipment.Malaysia also has a large Indian-origin population, around 6.8 percent, or almost three million people, official statistics said.”This living bridge… of diaspora is a great strength for us. The steps taken for their welfare lend a human foundation to our relationship,” Modi said.

Indian farmers have expressed concern that New Delhi has made too many concessions to Washington after the two countries brokered a new trade deal that would lower tariffs.Under the terms of the deal that was laid out in a joint statement from both countries released on Saturday, India will “eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods” and other food and agricultural products.Meanwhile, the US will apply a reciprocal tariff rate of 18 percent on goods from India, including textiles and apparel, leather and footwear, plastic and rubber, organic chemicals, and certain machinery, the joint statement added. The terms were released after US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India, stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to halt Russian oil purchases.Modi lauded the new trade deal in a post on the social media platform X later on Saturday, saying it would open up opportunities and generate jobs.But Indian farmer unions weren’t convinced, calling the deal a “total surrender” to American agricultural giants. “Indian industry, agriculture… are now under grave threat of cheap imports that will be dumped into Indian markets,” the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of multiple farmers’ unions, said in a statement following the announcement.The group also called on farmers to join a nationwide protest on February 12.- What’s on the table? -The joint statement states that India will “eliminate or reduce” tariffs on a “wide range of US food and agricultural products”.This includes tree nuts, some fresh fruit, soybean oil, wine, spirits and other “additional products” that were not specified.Siraj Hussain, a former agriculture ministry top official, said Indian consumers were purchasing more nuts, “so it’s import may not have much impact on local production”, and will help satisfy high demand. Domestic growers do worry, however, about cheap imports on items such as apples, which they believe could have dire impacts on local producers. “Import of fresh fruits such as apples… will ruin the farmers,” SKM said. Officials hope safeguards included into the agreement — such as import quotas or minimum import prices for commodities including apples — will reduce the impact of foreign competition. New Delhi’s promise of lower duties on dried distillers’ grains and red sorghum for animal feed could also reduce the need for local soybean meal. Opposition lawmaker Jairam Ramesh said the move to ease imports of dried distillers’ grains and soybean oil would hurt “millions of soybean farmers” in key Indian states such as Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.- What’s off the table? -To stem concerns, India’s Trade Minister Piyush Goyal reassured farmers that their interests would be safeguarded, adding that the key red lines that had been drawn by New Delhi had not been crossed. He said “no concessions” had been extended in “sensitive areas” such as grains, spices, dairy, poultry, meat and several vegetables and fruits — including potatoes, oranges and strawberries. The trade minister also said genetically modified crops were not part of the agreement.This includes GM soybean, which the US has searched hard to find new markets for.- Small farms ‘can’t compete’ -While the farm sector contributes just 16 percent to India’s GDP, it provides livelihood to over 45 percent of the population. This makes the industry a key voting bloc often wooed by political parties. Farmer groups have also shown, on multiple occasions, that they are a street force to be reckoned with. In 2021, the government abandoned plans to reform the sector after months of intense protests that blocked the national capital’s highways and led to Delhi’s historic Red Fort complex being stormed by tractors. “Indian farms are very small and they can’t really compete with highly subsidised US agriculture,” Hussain, the former agriculture ministry official, said.- India and US trade -Between January-November 2025, when New Delhi was negotiating with Washington, Indian imports of American agricultural goods rose 34 percent year-on-year, raking in just under $2.9 billion. Top imports included cotton, soybean oil, ethanol and various nuts such as almonds. This happened even before the trade deal, although the rise is partly due to India reducing tariffs on some of these US items. Experts have said that a further reduction on duties for products such as soybean oil, which was announced in the joint statement, will likely lead to a jump in goods being imported by India from the US. 

India’s wicket-taking hero Mohammed Siraj said “it felt like a dream” after a whirlwind 24 hours that saw him called into the T20 World Cup squad and force him to change holiday plans to watch Real MadridSiraj took a wicket with his fourth ball of his first T20 international for 19 months against the USA on Saturday night.He finished as India’s leading bowler with 3-29 as they completed a 29-run win at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium after restricting the Americans to 132-8 in reply to 161-9.The experienced quick bowler was only added to the squad 24 hours earlier as a replacement for the injured Harshit Rana.He then was parachuted straight into the team for the opening match against the United States after space spearhead Jasprit Bumrah was unable to play because of a fever.”First of all, in the last 24 hours, when I was sitting on the flight, it felt like a dream,” an beaming Siraj told reporters.”God changed my destiny. I was spending time with my family … suddenly, Surya bhai (captain Suryakumar Yadav) called me. “He said, ‘get ready, pack your bag, and come’.”The 31-year-old Siraj has been a regular performer for the Test team with 139 wickets in 45 matches but had not played a T20 international since July 2024.After being initially left out of India’s T20 World Cup squad, the Hyderabad-born Siraj had planned to go to Spain and watch his favourite football team, Real Madrid, in action.”My plan was that on the 15th (of February), there was a Real Madrid match, and I was going to watch it,” said Siraj.”After that, Ramzan (Islamic month of fasting) was coming, so I had planned around that. But whatever God has written will happen.”He is a self-confessed Cristiano Ronaldo fan, has a wallpaper of the football icon on his phone and often celebrates his wickets with his idol’s famous “Siu” celebration.The co-hosts India next play Namibia in New Delhi on Thursday.

Pakistan’s capital Islamabad was once known for its lush greenery, but the felling of trees across the city for infrastructure and military monuments has prompted local anger and even lawsuits.Built in the 1960s, Islamabad was planned as a green city, with wide avenues, parks and tree-lined sectors.Many residents fear that vision is steadily being eroded, with concrete replacing green spaces.Muhammad Naveed took the authorities to court this year over “large-scale tree cutting” for infrastructure projects, accusing them of felling “many mature trees” and leaving land “barren”.The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) blamed major infrastructure development, including road construction and monuments, for the mass razing of trees and natural vegetation in Islamabad.Between 2001 and 2024, the capital lost 14 hectares of tree cover, equal to 20 football pitches, according to Global Forest Watch, though the figure does not account for tree cover gains during the same period.For Kamran Abbasi, a local trader and resident since the 1980s, it feels like “they are cutting trees everywhere”.”It is not the same anymore,” he told AFP.”Trees are life. Thousands are cut to build one bridge.”- Smog and pollen -Meanwhile, air quality in Islamabad continues to deteriorate.Pollution is a longstanding problem, but plants can help by filtering dirty air, absorbing harmful gases and cooling cities.”Forests act as powerful natural filters… cleaning the air and water, and reducing the overall impact of pollution,” Muhammad Ibrahim, director of WWF-Pakistan’s forest programme told AFP.There were no good air quality days in Islamabad last month, with all but two classed as “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” by monitoring organisation IQAir.While some trees are felled for infrastructure, officials justify removing others to tackle seasonal pollen allergies that are especially acute in spring.That problem is largely attributed to paper mulberry trees, which were planted extensively during the city’s early development.”The main reason is pollen allergy,” said Abdul Razzaq, an official from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in Islamabad.”People suffer from chest infections, asthma and severe allergic reactions. I do too,” he told AFP.The government plans to remove 29,000 pollen-producing trees and plants, according to a recent WWF report.However, critics argue that pollen allergies are an excuse to justify broader tree-cutting, particularly linked to military and infrastructure projects.The solution lies not in indiscriminate tree removal, but careful urban planning, experts say, replanting with non-allergenic species — and greater transparency around development projects in the capital.- Capital under axe -In recent months, large bulldozers have been spotted levelling former green belts and wooded areas, including near major highways.According to WWF and unnamed government officials, some of the cleared land is tapped for monuments commemorating the brief but intense armed conflict between Pakistan and neighbouring India last May.Other plots were razed to make way for military-linked infrastructure.”We know that trees are being cut for military-related projects, but there is not much we can do,” a government source told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.”The people in power, the military, can do whatever they want.”Pakistan’s powerful military has ruled the country for decades through coups and is deeply involved in the country’s politics and economy, analysts say.At a proposed military monument site along the city’s express highway, WWF recorded more than six hectares of land clearing last year, with work continuing in 2026.It saw “no active plantation… indicating that the clearing is infrastructure driven”.The military did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.Naveed’s court case seeking to halt the widespread felling, which is still being heard, argues there is “no excuse” for the tree loss.If a monument is “deemed essential, why was it not placed in any existing park or public place?”, he argues.In reply to Naveed’s petition, authorities said roads and infrastructure projects were approved under regulations dating back to 1992.

A sparkling unbeaten 84 from India captain Suryakumar Yadav and three wickets from late call-up Mohammed Siraj in Mumbai on Saturday helped India to avoid a shock defeat to the United States as they opened their defence of the T20 World Cup.India were in trouble at 77-6 before Suryakumar took them to a competitive 161-9 at a packed Wankhede stadium and won by 29 runs as the USA could only muster 132-8 in reply.Chasing 162 for a massive upset, the Americans were quickly reduced to 13-3 as Siraj, only added to the squad 24 hours earlier as a replacement for the injured Harshit Rana, struck twice in his first two overs.A 58-run fourth wicket partnership between Milind Kumar (34) and Sanjay Krishnamurthi (37) put the USA on course for a stunning win.They were still in the hunt at 98-4 in the 16th over when spinner Axar Patel took two wickets in two balls to end their hopes.Suryakumar paced his 49-ball innings brilliantly, shepherding the tail and smashing 10 fours and four sixes as India plundered 75 off the final six overs.Siraj, who had not played a T20 international since July 2024, celebrated his recall by taking a wicket with his fourth ball.USA opener Andries Gous had just hit Siraj for six but next ball could only find Tilak Varma who took a low catch.Arshdeep Singh got in on the act at the other end, removing captain Monank Patel, who was caught by Shivam Dube off a leading edge. That left the USA at 11-2 which became 13-3 when Siraj struck again to remove Saiteja Mukkamalla for two.Siraj finished with 3-29 after trapping Shubham Ranjane lbw with the final ball of the innings.- Mini-collapse -After US captain Patel won the toss and opted to field, his decision was rewarded with the prize wicket of the dangerous Abhishek Sharma off the first ball he faced.The left-handed Abhishek attempted a typically flamboyant back-foot drive for six off the bowling of Ali Khan to be caught on the cover boundary by Sanjay Krishnamurthi.Number three Varma announced his arrival with a six and two fours off Saurabh Netravalkar.From a comfortable 45-1, Ishan Kishan slapped Shadley van Schalkwyk to Kumar at mid-off on 20 to spark a mini-collapse for India.It was soon 46-3 as Tilak succumbed to Van Schalkwyk, splicing an attempted pull to Patel at midwicket.Next ball Shivam Dube also fell to leave Van Schalkwyk on a hat-trick, which was successfully staved off by Suryakumar.India crept to 63-4 at the halfway stage which soon became 72-5 and 77-6 when Rinku Singh was caught in the deep and Hardik Pandya perished in similar fashion.Suryakumar bided his time before unleashing an assault in the 16th over, hitting three fours and a six off seamer Netravalkar.He reached his fifty off 36 balls with a trademark wristy sweep for four.The final over saw Suryakumar smash 21 runs including two sixes off the hapless Netravalkar, who finished with the sorry figures 0-65 off his four overs.Van Schalkwyk was the pick of the American attack with 4-25.

Thousands gathered on Saturday for the funerals of victims of a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 31 people and wounded 169 others in Pakistan’s capital. Friday’s attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, was the deadliest in Islamabad since the 2008 Marriott hotel bombing.City officials said 31 people were killed and another 169 were wounded in the explosion at the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque on the city’s outskirts. The death toll was expected to rise.Tearful mourners gathered at locations across Islamabad to bury the dead.”What happened yesterday has left us extremely angry and deeply hurt,” Bushra Rahmani, whose brother was among the wounded, said at one funeral.Syed Jamil Hussain Shah, a 45-year-old resident of the capital, said: “Whatever happened was completely wrong and against humanity.”Officials including a senior police officer in Pakistan’s northwest said on Saturday that some of the bomber’s relatives had been arrested.The officer, who did not give his name, said the attacker was from Peshawar, the capital of the violence-racked western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and that some of his relatives had been living in Nowshera on the road to the capital for several years.A security official told AFP on the condition of anonymity that the attacker’s mother was taken into custody in an upmarket neighbourhood of Islamabad, and that his brother and others were also arrested in different parts of the country.Officials did not specify on what charges they had been arrested or how many people had been taken into custody.- Bodies, bloodied clothing -The blast occurred during Friday prayers, when mosques are packed with worshippers. A security source told AFP that the attacker blew himself up after he was stopped at the mosque’s gate.A worshipper, Imran Mahmood, told AFP that there was a gunfight between the bomber and volunteer security personnel.”He then detonated the explosives”, Mahmood said.Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the blast and vowed that those responsible would be found and brought to justice.Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar branded it “a heinous crime against humanity and a blatant violation of Islamic principles”.AFP journalists at a major hospital on Friday afternoon saw several people, including children, being carried in on stretchers or by their arms and legs.Medics and bystanders helped unload victims with blood-soaked clothes from the back of ambulances and vehicles as friends and relatives of the wounded wept and screamed.Heavily armed security forces guarded the mosque, where pools of blood were visible on the ground.Videos shared on social media, which AFP was not able to verify immediately, showed several bodies lying near the mosque’s front gate, with people and debris also strewn across the red-carpeted prayer hall.- Growing insurgencies -The attack comes as Pakistan’s security forces battle intensifying insurgencies in southern and northern provinces that border Afghanistan.Pakistan is a Sunni-majority nation, but Shiites make up between 10 and 15 percent of the population and have been targeted in attacks throughout the region in the past.The last major attack in Islamabad was in November, when a suicide blast outside a court killed 12 people and wounded dozens, the first such incident to hit the capital in nearly three years.In Balochistan in the southwest, attacks claimed by separatist insurgents last week killed 36 civilians and 22 security personnel, prompting a wave of counter-operations in which authorities said almost 200 militants were killed.Friday’s attack was the deadliest in Islamabad since September 2008, when 60 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb blast that destroyed part of the five-star Marriott hotel.

Faheem Ashraf smashed an unbeaten 29 off 11 balls as Pakistan scrambled past the Netherlands by three wickets to avoid a massive shock in the curtain-raiser of the T20 World Cup in Colombo on Saturday.Pakistan were made to sweat as the Netherlands took a flurry of late wickets to leave them needing 29 off the last two overs with only three wickets in hand at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground.Faheem then hit 24, including three sixes, off a 19th over that also saw him dropped in the deep by Max O’Dowd and then completed the chase with three balls to spare.”We had to do it the hard way,” admitted Pakistan captain Salman Agha.”We did well with the bat. We batted well earlier on but then in T20 cricket a few bad overs can change the complexion. All credit to Faheem,” he added.”Happy with our bowling. We did a good job. A target of 148 we would take that any day on this kind of surface. It was a good bowling performance.”Pakistan had begun well, racing to 61 for two after the six-over power play.Sahibzada Farhan looked in prime touch, cracking 47 off 31, but his exit swung the pendulum the Dutch way.Right-arm quick Paul van Meekeren produced a double-wicket maiden to turn the screws.When the unconvincing Babar Azam perished in the next over for a scratchy 15, Pakistan were in trouble having lost three wickets for two runs in the space of 10 deliveries.- Wobbling chase -With the chase wobbling, Faheem stitched a priceless unbroken 34-run stand for the eighth wicket with Shaheen Shah Afridi to see Pakistan home.a”We have been playing this brand of cricket for this past year,” said Faheem, who was awarded player of the match.”Heart rates go up and down, it’s happened so many times before, we’re used to it.”Earlier, the Netherlands showed plenty of flair after being put in. Roared on by around 200 travelling fans, they were in a good position at 127-4 with four overs to go, but Pakistan applied the brakes with the slow men sharing six wickets between them.”We weren’t at our best in all three departments today,” said Netherlands captain Scott Edwards. “Credit to the boys to give us a chance at the back end. Obviously small moments can be crucial,” he added.Edwards anchored the innings with a polished 37 off 29 balls, but perished when he tried to take the aerial route against leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed.Part-time spinner Saim Ayub then struck twice in the 17th over before left-arm quick Salman Mirza’s three-wicket burst dismissed the Dutch with one ball to spare.Pakistan conceded just 20 runs in the final four overs backed up by a razor-sharp performance in the field with several outstanding catches in the deep.”We just kept losing wickets at important times rather than building partnerships. We were thinking 160 would be a good total,” said Edwards.Pakistan can ill-afford any slip-ups in the group stage after saying they will not play against India on February 15 on government instructions and forfeiting the points in Group A.Pakistan will play all their matches in Sri Lanka in the 20-team tournament co-hosted by Sri Lanka and defending champions India.

For more than three decades, Bangladesh was one of the few countries in the world to be led by women, yet there are almost none on the February 12 ballots.Despite helping to spearhead the uprising that led to this vote, women are poised to be largely excluded from the South Asian country’s political arena.Regardless of which parties win next week, the outcome will see Bangladesh governed almost exclusively by men. “I used to be proud that even though my country is not the most liberal, we still had two women figureheads at the top,” first-time voter Ariana Rahman, 20. told AFP. “Whoever won, the prime minister would be a woman.” Women make up less than four percent of the candidates for this election: just 76 among the 1,981 contestants vying for 300 parliamentary seats. And most of the parties put only men on their tickets. Women’s political representation has always been limited in the conservative South Asian nation. Since independence, the highest number elected was 22 in 2018. But from 1991 until the 2024 revolution, Bangladesh was helmed, represented abroad and politically defined by two women: Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia.Zia died in December after leading the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for four decades and serving three terms as premier.Hasina, the five-time prime minister overthrown in the July 2024 uprising, is hiding in India and sentenced to death in absentia for crimes against humanity. – ‘Censored, vilified, judged’ -Many rights campaigners had hoped the revolution that ended Hasina’s autocratic rule would usher in a period of greater equality, including for women.While the caretaker government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus set up a Women’s Affairs Reform Commission, his interim administration has also been criticised for sidelining the body and making unilateral decisions without consulting women officials.And there has been a surge of open support for Islamist groups, which want to limit women’s participation in public life. After years of being suppressed, emboldened hardliners have demanded organisers of religious commemorations and other public events remove women from the line-up, as well as calling for restrictions on activities like women’s football matches. “Historically, women’s participation has always been low in our country, but there was an expectation for change after the uprising, which never happened,” said Mahrukh Mohiuddin, the spokesperson for women’s political rights organisation Narir Rajnoitik Odhikar Forum (Women’s Political Rights Forum).An entrenched patriarchal mindset means women are often relegated to household duties, she added.Those who dare to speak out often face hostility.  “Women are censored, vilified… judged for simply being part of a political party,” said uprising leader Umama Fatema. “That is the reality.”Even the group formed by student leaders of the revolution, the National Citizen Party (NCP), is fielding just two women among its 30 candidates.”I don’t take part in any decision‑making of my party, (and) the biggest and most important decisions are not taken in our presence,” said NCP member Samantha Sharmeen.The NCP has allied with Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party and one of 30 parties to have failed to nominate a single woman.- ‘Can’t be any women leaders’ -Jamaat’s assistant secretary general, Ahsanul Mahboob Zubair, said society was not yet “ready and safe” for women in politics.Nurunnesa Siddiqa of its women’s wing added: “In an Islamic organisation, there can’t be any women leaders, we have accepted that.”One of the few women running in this election, Manisha Chakraborty, said women’s participation in Bangladesh’s politics has long been limited to tokenisation.The nation of 170 million people directly elects 300 lawmakers to its parliament, while another 50 are selected on a separate women’s list.”The concept of reserved seats is insulting,” said Chakraborty, whose Bangladesh Socialist Party has nominated 10 women among it 29 candidates — the highest share in this poll. “Lobbying, internal preference, nepotism — all play a role in making women’s participation in parliament just a formality,” she told AFP.  Former minister Abdul Moyeen Khan said the reserved seats “were meant to help women establish a foothold”, but “the opposite happened”.Selima Rahman, the only woman on the BNP’s standing committee, said promising women leaders often “fade away” due to a lack of party support. And while Zia and Hasina served important symbolic roles, she pointed to how both had been elevated to the pinnacle of power through family connections. Student voter Ariana Rahman fears a long struggle lies ahead.”More women in this election would have made me feel better represented,” she said. “The next few years are likely to be more hostile towards women.”

A worshipper at the Shiite mosque in Islamabad where dozens of people were killed in a suicide blast on Friday described an “extremely powerful” explosion ripping through the building just after prayers started.Muhammad Kazim, 52, told AFP he arrived at the Imam Bargah Qasr-e-Khadijatul Kubra mosque shortly after 1:00 pm (0800 GMT) on Friday and took up a place around seven or eight rows from the Imam.”During the first bow of the Namaz (prayer ritual), we heard gunfire,” he told AFP outside the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) hospital, where many of the wounded were brought for treatment.”And while we were still in the bowing position, an explosion occurred,” he said.Kazim, who is from Gilgit-Baltistan in northern Pakistan and lives in Islamabad, escaped unharmed, but accompanied his wounded friend to the PIMS hospital for treatment.”It was unclear whether it was a suicide bombing, but the explosion was extremely powerful and caused numerous casualties,” Kazim said.”Debris fell from the roof, and windows were shattered,” he added. “When I got outside, many bodies were scattered… Many people lost their lives.”The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist communications.Another worshipper, Imran Mahmood, described a gunfight between the suicide bomber, a possible accomplice and volunteer security personnel at the mosque.”The suicide attacker was trying to move forward, but one of our injured volunteers fired at him from behind, hitting him in the thigh,” Mahmood, in his fifties, told AFP.”He fell but got up again. Another man accompanying him opened fire on our volunteers,” he said, adding the attacker “then jumped onto the gate and detonated the explosives”.As of Saturday morning, the death toll stood at 31, with at least 169 wounded.The attack was the deadliest in the Pakistani capital since September 2008, when 60 people were killed in a suicide truck bomb blast that destroyed part of the five-star Marriott hotel.- Lax security -Describing the aftermath of the attack, Kazim said unhurt worshippers went to the aid of those wounded.”People tried to help on their own, carrying two or three bodies in the trunks of their vehicles, while ambulances arrived about 20 to 25 minutes later,” he told AFP. “No one was allowed near the mosque afterwards.”Kazim, who has performed Friday prayers at the mosque “for the past three to four weeks”, said security had been lax.”I have never seen proper security in place,” he told AFP.”Volunteers manage security on their own, but they lack the necessary equipment to do it effectively,” he said.”Shiite mosques are always under threat, and the government should take this seriously and provide adequate security,” he added.