An official reported that at least 19 members of Pakistan’s security forces were gravely injured on Saturday when a suicide bomber riding an explosive-laden motorbike assaulted their convoy in the restive tribal belt bordering Afghanistan in northwest Pakistan.
The security forces convoy was going from DI Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to Asman Manza in South Waziristan when the suicide bomber attacked, according to BDS (Bomb Disposal Squad) in-charge Inayayatullah Tiger.
Two members of the security forces are thought to be in critical condition, he said.
The entire region has been blocked off, and police in Pakistan have initiated an investigation into the attack.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the incident.
Two soldiers were among four people killed on Wednesday when a suicide bomber in an explosive-laden car targeted a security checkpoint in Datta Khel Bazar, north Waziristan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The incident on Saturday occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan and was a former bastion of the insurgent Pakistani Taliban group, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP.
On January 30, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up during afternoon prayers in a Peshawar mosque, killing 101 people and wounding over 200 more.
Terrorism has struck Pakistan, primarily in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but also in Balochistan, the Punjab town of Mianwali, which borders the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, and the Sindh province.
In November of last year, the TTP pulled off an indefinite ceasefire agreement reached with the government in June 2022 and directed its fighters to assault security troops.
Pakistan believed that after taking power, the Afghan Taliban would stop using their territory against Pakistan by expelling TTP agents, but they appear to have resisted at the cost of straining ties with Islamabad.
The TTP, formed in 2007 as an umbrella organization of multiple militant outfits, broke a truce with the federal government and directed its members to carry out terrorist strikes around the country.
The group, which is thought to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda, has been blamed for a number of violent incidents in Pakistan, including an attack on army headquarters in 2009, assaults on military bases, and the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
The TTP was also behind the terrible Army Public School massacre in Peshawar in 2014, which killed over 130 kids.
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