A policeman was martyred and at least nine other people were injured on Thursday following a suicide bombing at the Bara Bazaar of Khyber district, with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General (IGP) Akhtar Hayat confirming the attack had targeted a tehsil office compound.
Hayatabad Medical Complex spokesperson Tauheed, in a statement, said seven police personnel and two civilians had been injured in the blast. She confirmed the martyrdom of one policeman, adding the condition of three of the injured was now stable.
In a statement, the IGP said two other suicide attackers had tried to enter the tehsil office from its front and rear entrances, adding that police had gunned both down. However, he added, both attackers had set off explosives—damaging the tehsil office’s main gate and building—and opened fire on the compound before they were slain. He said samples of both attackers’ DNA had been collected for further investigation.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif “strongly denounced” the attack and expressed grief and sorrow over the policeman’s martyrdom, according to a report by state-run Radio Pakistan. He also directed the “best possible medical treatment” for the injured. In a statement, Sharif said the policemen had “thwarted the evil intentions of the terrorists by stopping the suspects and risking their lives,” and paid tribute to their efforts.
Thursday’s bombing was the fourth terrorist strike in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in three days. On Tuesday, six Frontier Corps personnel were injured after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a vehicle carrying the paramilitary personnel in Peshawar’s Hayatabad area. On Wednesday, a police constable was martyred in Dera Ismail Khan’s Kulachi tehsil after unknown gunmen opened fire on him. On Wednesday night, two policemen were martyred and two others injured after unidentified assailants opened fire on a police checkpost in Peshawar’s Regi Model Town area.
There has been a significant resurgence of terrorism across Pakistan, but especially in KP and Balochistan, since the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) unilaterally ended a ceasefire with the government last November. According to a report published by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, militant attacks in the first six months of 2023 resulted in deaths of 389 people nationwide.
In recent weeks, the government and military alike have started to push the interim government of Afghanistan to ensure its soil is not used to launch terrorist attacks against other states. Pointing to the reported presence of “safe havens” and “freedom of movement” of the militants in the neighboring nation, the military’s media wing has warned that terrorist attacks “would elicit an effective response from the security forces of Pakistan.”
A Taliban spokesman, responding to Pakistan’s concerns, rubbished the allegations of safe havens and advised Pakistan to resolve its internal problems itself.