At least 3 dead, 20 injured in Taliban suicide bombing in Pakistan

Islamabad, Sep 5 (EFE).- At least three people died and another 20 were injured on Sunday in a suicide attack against a security checkpoint in the city of Quetta in western Pakistan.

“Today at 7:30, a suicide bomber rammed into a check post of security forces,” a Quetta police spokesperson, Gel Sher, told EFE.

Three Frontier Corps soldiers were killed in the attack and another 20 people were injured, including 16 soldiers, he added.

The injured have been taken to a hospital in the area.

The main Taliban group in the country, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Sher.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the suicide bombing and offered his condolences to the victims’ families.

“Salute our security forces & their sacrifices to keep us safe by thwarting foreign-backed terrorists’ designs,” he said on Twitter.

Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan province, one of the most troubled areas of Pakistan with the presence of armed separatist groups, Taliban factions and jihadist groups.

In late April, an attack carried out by the Pakistani Taliban against the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan killed five people and injured 15 others at a five-star hotel in Quetta.

In June, eight people were killed, including four soldiers, and another 13 wounded in an attack by a group of insurgents against a security post in Quetta.

Terrorism-related violence has declined significantly in Pakistan since the military launched an operation in the northwestern tribal areas in June 2014, which was later expanded to the rest of the country.

However, attacks have increased again in recent months, coinciding with the arrival in power in Afghanistan of the Afghan Taliban, who took control of Kabul in mid-August. EFE

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