By Zulfiqar Ali & Shashank Bengali in Peshawar for the L.A. Times, Feb. 17

The Pakistani army on Friday arrested or killed dozens of suspected militants and launched artillery rounds at targets in neighboring Afghanistan a day after a suicide bombing at a Sufi shrine killed at least 88 people.

Residents in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal district said security forces fired barrages into Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, where militants loyal to Islamic State have often found sanctuary.

An Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the bombing Thursday at a shrine to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a 13th century Sufi preacher, in southern Pakistan’s Sindh province. Health Ministry officials raised the death toll to 88 people, with approximately 350 wounded, dozens critically.

Security officials said they had killed 44 suspected militants in security operations across the country [....]

Pakistani officials have played down the claim by Islamic State loyalists, saying only that the attack came from militants based in Afghanistan. Pakistan closed its border with Afghanistan late Thursday, causing long lines of loaded vehicles at two key highway crossings.

Afghan diplomats were summoned to army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi and given a list of 76 militants “hiding” in Afghanistan that Pakistan wanted arrested and handed over, officials said [....]