Police officer killed in suicide bombing in northwest Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A suicide bomb attack near a police vehicle in restive northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan killed at least one officer on Monday and wounded several others, officials said.

The attack happened in Lakki Marwat, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police official Ashfaq Khan said, without providing further details.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the attack.

Separately, suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a military facility overnight in Nokandi, a district in the insurgency-hit southwestern Balochistan province, according to local media reports.

The Balochistan Liberation Front, a separatist group, claimed responsibility in a statement, saying its fighters targeted an office of the Frontier Corps and that an exchange of fire with troops was ongoing.

There was no immediate comment from the military or the government.

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in violence in recent years, and the government often blames Balochistan-based separatists and the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, which is separate from, but aligned with, Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

The steady rise in attacks has strained relations between Islamabad and Kabul, with Pakistani authorities accusing the TTP of operating freely inside Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021. Afghanistan denies the allegation.

Tensions escalated between Pakistan and Afghanistan after the Taliban government accused Pakistan of carrying out an Oct. 9 drone strike on Kabul.

Cross-border clashes followed, killing dozens of soldiers, civilians and militants before Qatar brokered a cease-fire on Oct. 19 that remains in place, though talks between the two sides ended in Istanbul without an agreement. Iran and Saudi Arabia have offered to help revive the stalled talks.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week said that Pakistan will welcome mediation by friendly countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, but Islamabad only wants Kabul to rein in the TTP and other militants and stop them from using the Afghan soil for attacks inside Pakistan.