At least 16 people have been killed and more than 20�others wounded in a bomb attack in a Pakistani mosque near the Afghanistan border, a regional official says.

The blast occurred during Friday prayers in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan, Naveed Akbar, the deputy administrator of Mohmand agency, said.

"The suicide bomber was in crowded mosque,� he added, saying,�it was a �huge blast.�

A second regional official confirmed the bombing in the�village of Payee Khan, in the troubled Mohmand region of the�lawless Federally�Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Shaukat Khan, another official in the northwestern FATA�region, said at least 24 people were wounded.

"Many people were gathered inside the mosque where a suicide�bomber blew himself up," he said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but pro-Taliban militants are usually blamed for such attacks.

Thousands of people have been killed over the past decade as a result of the surge in violence in Pakistan.

Pro-Taliban elements killed over 150 people, most of them children, in an armed assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.

By Press TV