Peshawar: At least nine people were killed and more than two dozen others wounded when a bomb planted on a rickshaw exploded at a busy bazaar in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, police said, emphasizing the growing militant threat along the Afghan border, AP reported.
The blast took place in Lakki Marwat, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to police officials. Local police chief Azmat Ullah said that among those killed included two traffic police officers and a woman.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but suspicion is expected to centre on the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik‑e‑Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The group operates separately from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban but enjoys close links with it and has significantly ramped up its campaign against Pakistani security forces in recent years.
The latest attack followed close on the heels of an incident in which 15 police officers were killed in a suicide bombing and gun assault on a security post in the nearby Bannu district, prompting Islamabad to summon a senior Afghan diplomat in order to lodge a formal complaint. Pakistan blamed the late‑Saturday attack on the TTP.
Pakistani authorities have long accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing sanctuary to TTP militants. Kabul has rejected the charge, stating that it does not allow militants to use Afghan soil to launch attacks against other countries. Pakistan has faced a sharp rise in militant violence in recent years, adding further pressure to already tense relations with Afghanistan.
The TTP and other militant factions have grown increasingly confident since the Afghan Taliban regained power in Kabul in 2021. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have remained strained, marked by border clashes that have left hundreds dead since late February. In early April, the two sides held peace talks mediated by China. However, sporadic cross‑border fighting has continued, even if the intensity has eased somewhat compared with earlier phases of the crisis.
