At least 4 killed in twin suicide bombing on police compound in Pakistan
Islamabad, Jul 20 (EFE).- At least four people died and some dozen were wounded after two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police compound in Bara town of tribal Khyber district in Pakistan, police said Thursday.
Akhtar Hayat, police chief for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Bara is located, said at a press conference that the two attackers tried to enter the police compound but guards on duty stopped them by opening fire.
“One attacker tried to enter the building from the front gate and the other from the back,” Hayat said during a media briefing in the provincial capital of Peshawar.
He said the building and the gate of the compound have been damaged due to the explosion by the terrorists.
“Four people including three policemen were dead and around 10 others were wounded in the two suicide attacks,” Nizam Khan, a police official at Khyber police control room, told EFE.
The country’s ambulance service agency, Rescue 1122, said in a statement that an explosion in the compound, where the police station is also located, caused the roof of the building to collapse.
Heavy machinery has been dispatched to the spot and rescue operations are underway to rescue those trapped under the debris of the building, it added.
Pakistan has seen a surge in terrorism-related incidents since the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan in August 2021, coinciding with the US pullout from the country.
Last night, two policemen were killed and two others were injured in firing on policemen stationed at the gate of Regi police station in Peshawar.
In a separate incident, eight security forces personnel were injured as a result of a suicide attack on their vehicle in Peshawar’s upscale Hayatabad neighborhood.
Earlier this month, as many as 12 soldiers of the Pakistan army were killed in two attacks on the military in the Zhob and Sui areas of Balochistan, which was the military’s highest single-day death toll from terrorist attacks reported this year.
Pakistan claims Afghan soil is being used by the Pakistani Taliban or the TTP to carry out attacks on their territory.
Two days after the Zhob and Sui attacks, the military expressed “serious concerns” about the “safe havens and liberty of action available” to the TTP in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has rejected Pakistan’s claims saying the interim government of Afghan Taliban does not shelter the TTP or allow it to operate from Afghanistan. EFE
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