A suicide bomber struck a crowded Pakistan mosque yesterday, killing 48 people and wounding more than 100 during Ramadan prayers, in the country’s deadliest attack for three months.

Blood was splattered across the mosque’s main hall and walls, while the building’s doors and windows were destroyed and its ceiling fans mangled by the blast, according to an AFP reporter at the site.

Ball bearings used in the suicide vest were also scattered across the mosque in Jamrud town, 25 kilometres from Peshawar, the main city in the Khyber tribal district where much of the violence in Pakistan is concentrated.

The attack took place came as a US drone strike killed four militants in the northwestern tribal area of Pakistan which is awash with Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked networks and where US special forces killed Osama bin Laden on May 2.

More than 500 people had packed into the mosque and a senior official from the Khyber tribal district administration Sayed Ahmed Jan said that the bomb had exploded seconds after the main prayer ended.“The death toll has now risen to 48,” top Administration official Mutahar Zeb said.He said injured had been taken to nearby hospitals while a bomb disposal squad was at the scene, adding that those killed in the attack included four young boys of less than nine years of age.

Earlier, deputy chief of the semi-autonomous administration Khalid Mumtaz Kundi had said 117 people were also wounded in the attack.

“It was a suicide attack. The bomber was wearing about eight to 10 kilograms of explosives and was on foot.

He detonated in the main prayer hall,” he added.