UPDATE - Suicide attacker kills 26 in Pakistan's Lahore

UPDATES WITH TALIBAN CLAIMING ATTACK, CONDEMNATION FROM PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN, STATEMENT OF PAKISTAN ARMY CHIEF AND DEATH TOLL RISE

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - At least 26 people were killed and 57 injured on Monday in a suspected suicide attack in Pakistan’s northeastern city of Lahore, officials said.

Sameer Ahmed, city deputy commissioner, told reporters the fatalities included nine police officers.

The explosion occurred when a suspected suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden motorbike into police officers at a vegetable market in the densely-populated Ferozpur area, local broadcaster Geo News reported.

An initial investigation suggested that a lone suicide bomber targeted police, Deputy Inspector General of Punjab police Haider Ashraf told reporters.

Footage aired on Geo News showed rescue workers carrying the injured on their shoulders while running towards ambulances and private vehicles.

Giant plumes of thick smoke and flames billowed upward as several vehicles parked across the road caught fire soon after the blast.

Blood-soaked caps, shoes, pieces of clothes and human flesh lay strewn across the blast site, as paramilitary rangers were called in to join the rescue effort.

The city administration declared an emergency in hospitals and appealed for blood donations.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the death toll may climb due to the serious nature of injuries.

- Taliban claim responsibility

Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mohammad Khurasani, purported spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in a statement claimed that a motorbike-riding suicide bomber targeted “dozens” of policemen in Lahore.

He warned the militant network would continue to target the security forces until they stop acting as frontline ally of “infidels” -- a thinly-veiled reference to the United States, of which Pakistan is a key ally in so-called war against terrorism.

Meanwhile, President Mamnoon Hussain, and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have condemned the terrorist attack declaring that their country’s ongoing war against terrorism will continue despite these “cowardly attacks:”.

Pakistan’s army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa also condoled with the victims’ families, and directed the army units to initiate immediate rescue and relief efforts, the military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor wrote in a tweet.

Pakistan army has been engaged in a series of operations against militants loyal to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a consortium of different terrorist groups in Pakistan, mainly in the northwestern tribal belt along Afghan border since 2014.

The ongoing operations, according to interior ministry, have significantly brought down the terrorism related incidents by 70 percent.

However, the militants who reportedly fled to neighboring Afghanistan, and established bases there still strike the security forces and civilians across the country on and off.

Last February, a blast outside the Punjab state assembly building in Lahore killed 13 people and injured more than 60.