ISLAMABAD, Sept 18 (Reuters) – At least 16 people were killed and 57 wounded after a suicide attacker rammed an explosives-laden car into a police facility in northwest Pakistan on Friday as officers and their families were praying in a mosque inside, officials said.
Five police officers were among the dead after the vehicle smashed into the outer wall and gunmen who accompanied it opened fire in the city of Kohat, provincial police chief Zulfikar Hameed said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has seen a rise in attacks by Islamist militants fighting to overthrow the federal government.
Videos shared by rescuers showed the boundary wall ripped apart by the blast, and people trying to pull the wounded from the debris as ambulances arrived.
People lay on the road as others in blood-stained clothes tried to help them.
All seven attackers were killed in the explosion and the gun battle that followed, police said in a statement.
The interior ministry said the “cowardly actions” of the attackers could not weaken the “nation’s firm resolve”.
Militancy in Pakistan’s border areas has risen sharply in recent months, targeting mainly the military and police.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban — the region’s main militant group, which is an umbrella body of several Sunni militant organisations — issued a statement disowning Friday’s attack.
Islamabad says militants use safe havens in Afghanistan to train and plan attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan’s Taliban government has denied the charge and said militancy is Pakistan’s domestic problem.
(Reporting by Islamabad bureau, writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by YP Rajesh and Andrew Heavens)
