Lahore: At least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday, AFP reported quoting local government officials and police.
The attack also left 29 people injured, including 10 army personnel and 19 civilians. The condition of four injured soldiers is critical.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) suicide bomber wing, the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
“A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a military convoy,” said a local government official in the North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The explosion also caused the roofs of two houses to collapse, injuring six children,” a police officer informed.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is witnessing a surge in violent militant attacks in recent months.
In March, the TTP announced a “spring campaign” against security forces, threatening “ambushes, targeted attacks, suicide attacks and strikes.”
In the last three months, TTP has claimed responsibility for around 100 attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
As many as 290 people, mostly security officials, have been killed since January in attacks by armed groups fighting the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, according to AFP.
Attacks in Pakistan have gone up since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Pakistan has accused the Taliban government of failing to eliminate militants who take refuge on Afghan soil to prepare attacks against Pakistan.
Not only does Taliban deny such accusations, they claim Pakistan harbour “terrorist” cells on its soil, pointing the finger in particular at the regional branch of the Islamic State group IS-K.
