Eight people were killed in a suicide blast in northwestern Pakistan

At least eight people, including six law enforcement officers, were killed and scores of others injured Saturday in a suicide attack targeting a police picket in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

According to sources, the blast occurred at the Aslam checkpoint in Mir Ali Tehsil in the North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

Three-wheeled attackers hit a checkpoint and security forces vehicles, killing four police officers, two soldiers and two civilians.

The injured were taken to a local hospital. According to sources, the number of victims may increase.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, the area has been cordoned off by security forces. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi condemned the attack.

“The sacrifices of the security forces in the war on terrorism will be remembered for a long time. Actions against terrorist groups will continue uninterrupted until their complete elimination from the region, he said.

In recent times, Pakistan has witnessed a significant increase in terrorist activities. About a dozen militants were eliminated this month by security forces in North Waziristan district during counter-terrorism operations.

On Thursday, 10 security personnel were killed and three others injured when militants attacked their checkpoint in the province’s Dera Ismail Khan district.

Since the Taliban took over the government in Kabul in 2021, there has been an increase in the number of terrorist incidents in Pakistan.

The Pakistani government has repeatedly accused the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group of operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Most terrorist incidents were reported in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, both bordering the neighboring country.

A report released earlier this month by the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) think tank said there was a sharp increase in the number of deaths from terrorist violence and counter-terrorism campaigns in the third quarter of 2024, with a 90 percent increase in the number of fatalities. violence in the country.

The total number of fatalities in the three quarters of this year exceeded that recorded in all of 2023 and amounted to 722 fatalities, including civilians, security personnel and outlaws.

Nearly 97 percent of these fatalities occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, the highest percentage in a decade.