Suicide bomber kills at least 70 at Pakistan hospital, IS claim responsibility

First responders and volunteers transport the injured and dead away from the scene of a bomb blast outside a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan August 8, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

QUETTA, Pakistan - A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed at least 70 people and wounded more than 100 on Monday in an attack on mourners gathered at a hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta, and Islamic State claimed responsibility.

The bomber struck as a crowd of mostly lawyers and journalists crammed into the emergency department to accompany the body of a prominent lawyer who had been shot and killed in the city earlier in the day, Faridullah, a reporter who was among the wounded, told Reuters.

Abdul Rehman Miankhel, a senior official at the government-run Civil Hospital, where the explosion occurred, told reporters that at least 70 people had been killed, with more than 112 wounded.

"There are many wounded, so the death toll could rise," said Rehmat Saleh Baloch, the provincial health minister.

Islamic State's Amaq news agency reported the Middle East-based movement was behind the atrocity. If true, it would mark an alarming development for Pakistan, long plagued by Islamist militant violence but most of it locally-based.

"A martyr from the Islamic State detonated his explosive belt at a gathering of justice ministry employees and Pakistani policemen in the city of Quetta," Amaq said.

Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban group, earlier said it carried out the attack, although the group is believed to have claimed responsibility for bombings in the past that it was not involved in.

"The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaat-ur-Ahrar (TTP-JA) takes responsibility for this attack, and pledges to continue carrying out such attacks," said spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a statement.

Only last week, Jamaat was added to the United States' list of global terrorists, triggering sanctions.