At least 40 people are dead in a coordinated suicide attack on a Rawalpindi mosque, the BBC is reporting.

Initial reports placed blame for the attack on militants, retaliating against the Pakistani army’s recently launched offensive against Taliban forces near the Afghan border. This attack was one in a series of escalating violence since mid-October: An 10 October raid at the nearby army base left 23 people dead and a 2 November suicide bomb killed 35 people in the same region.

Officials in Pakistan, however, are claiming that India may have been involved in the attack. Minister of the Interior, Rehman Malik said in a press conference today that a truck loaded with Indian arms and ammunition was found earlier in the day, pointing to international backing in the attack. Malik also urged the ulema, Mulsim religious scholars, to issue a fatwa, a religious command, to preach against attacks on innocent women and children, our reporter in Pakistan, Sapna Khan Mummunka, said.

Mummunka also reported that Jamaatyi-Islami leader, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, in an interview with a local news channel, claimed that the perpetrators of this attack were non-Muslims, adding that the war against terror is actually a war against islam, perpetrated by Indians, Israelis and Americans.

The militants attacked a mosque close to army headquarters in the Islamabad suburb of Rawalpindi, the BBC reports, and many of those killed were military officers. The attack comes the day after Pakistani officials expressed concern over the US’s plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2011, claiming that a timeline could increase destabilization in Afghanistan and, consequently, Pakistan. Since President Barack Obama’s announcement, 25 countries have pledged an additional 7,000 troops to the Afghanistan, the BBC is reporting.