At least 12 people have died and 27 have been injured after a “suicide attack” occurred this Tuesday near a district court in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, as confirmed by the Minister of the Interior, Mohsin Naqvi. There is, at the moment, no claim of responsibility for the attack.
Police sources cited by the Pakistani television network Geo TV have indicated that the explosion took place next to a vehicle parked in front of the district court, which was subsequently evacuated. The terrorist, according to Naqvi, tried to enter the judicial headquarters on foot but, after waiting a while at the door, he detonated the explosive device outside, near a police vehicle, at 12:39 local time (8:39 in mainland Spain).
The authorities have sent security reinforcements to the site, as well as experts to analyze the scene of the explosion. Some sources suggest that the decapitated head of the alleged suicide bomber has been located at the site, although for now there are no details about his identity.
Attack on a military school
Shortly after the attack in Islamabad, the Pakistani Government reported that security forces had begun to evacuate more than 500 cadets from a military college in the northwest of the country, after the facilities suffered another alleged suicide attack that left at least three suspected insurgents dead and for which authorities blamed Afghanistan directly.
“The attackers rammed a vehicle loaded with explosives into the main gate, causing the gate to collapse and damage to the adjacent infrastructure,” states a statement from the Armed Forces (ISPR), which highlights that the attack was “quickly thwarted” by its troops.
The attackers, belonging, according to this official note, to the group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), tried to break into the academic premises, the Cadet College Wana, located in a tribal area of the South Waziristan district, in the province of Khyber Pakthunkhwa. The military operation continued mid-morning this Tuesday with the objective of neutralizing three militants who managed to enter the facility and evacuate the cadets who were still trapped, security sources reported.
At the time of the attack, according to the same sources, there were about 650 people at the school, including 525 cadets. “The evacuation of the cadets is progressing gradually,” they added, specifying that the operation continues with the utmost caution to guarantee the safety of the cadets and that it will not end until “the last militant is eliminated.”
Forensic analysis of a mobile phone found among the bodies of the dead militants has revealed that they were in constant contact with their coordinators in Afghanistan, the military sources added.
Speaking to the media, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed that three people were killed during the exchange of fire and that one of the suicide bombers has been identified as an Afghan national. “We are very clear that Afghanistan is directly involved in the attack,” he said.
Pakistan has seen a spike in insurgent violence since the return to power of the Afghan Taliban in 2021. Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring TTP fighters on its territory, something the Taliban government denies. In the last month, both countries have engaged in a spiral of violence on the border that has caused dozens of deaths.
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