A suicide bomber struck a safety put up in northwestern Pakistan with an explosives-laden automobile, killing at the least 11 safety personnel and injuring a number of others, intelligence and safety officers confirmed Wednesday.
The assault, one of many deadliest in latest months, occurred Tuesday night in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, referred to as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed accountability for the assault in an announcement.
There was no instant remark by the federal government, however the safety and intelligence officers stated safety personnel had been finishing up an operation concentrating on those that orchestrated the assault.
The officers spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to speak to reporters.
Pakistan has witnessed a gradual improve in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong cease-fire with the federal government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also called Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group however are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized energy in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose prime leaders and members are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber focused a police station’s essential gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s assault occurred in Bannu whereas the nation’s political and navy management was assembly in Islamabad to debate how to answer the surge in terrorist violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday authorised a “complete navy operation” in opposition to separatist teams, together with the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order got here following a Nov. 9 suicide assault by the group at a practice station that killed 26 individuals in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In latest months. violence has additionally surged in northwest Pakistan, the place safety forces typically goal TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior protection analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, stated over 900 safety forces have been killed in terrorist assaults in Pakistan since 2022, when TTP ended the cease-fire with the federal government.
“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan stated. He stated there’s a want for political stability within the nation to defeat the insurgents.
Pakistan has skilled a political disaster since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his launch.
Source: www.dailysabah.com