The 2009 Jamrud mosque bombing occurred on 27 March 2009, in Jamrud in the Khyber Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas during Friday prayers. The local police immediately claimed a casualty count of 48 while adding that the death toll could reach as high as 70. A hundred wounded were also taken to hospital. It was reported that about 250 worshippers were present during prayer time. Background Jamrud (Urdu: جمرود) is a town located in the Khyber Agency, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. The town is of strategic importance, as the doorway to the Khyber Pass, part of the Hindu Kush range, which leads into Afghanistan. The Khyber Pass has been a principal route for resupplying NATO forces in the current Afghan theatre of conflict. In February 2009, a bridge 15 miles northwest of Peshawar was blown up by militants presumably sympathetic to or sponsored by the Taliban. The bombing of the Jamrud mosque came at a time of increased uncertainty in Pakistan following a high-profile attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team as well as more tense moments as former PM Nawaz Sharif threatened to join the lawyers' Long March to Islamabad although he had been placed under 'house arrest at his family's compound Raiwind, with the stated aim of reinstating the sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Choudhary as promised, although this calls for a new "revolution" was also a direct response to, his being barred, along with his brother, from ever running for any government office again, and the consequent dismissal of the Punjab government led by his brother. There was also talk of an increased American drone bombing campaign into other areas of Pakistan. Al Jazeera English reported that "rising violence in Pakistan's northwest [was] fueling doubts about the country's ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters." Jamrud also lies in the Khyber region, where fighters have intensified attacks on lorries carrying supplies to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan. This attack came a day after at least 11 people were killed at a restaurant in the same northwest region in the Jandola district of South Waziristan. Follow-up The next day a supply base for NATO troops was attacked and 12 containers were damaged. Attack The attack occurred just after the muezzin's call to prayer. As a result of the attack the upper floor of the mosque collapsed on the worshippers below. A