A suicide bomber targets an Islamabad court, killing 12 people and wounding 27, minister says

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A suicide bomber struck outside the gates of a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people, Pakistan’s interior minister said, the latest in an uptick in violence across the country.

Witnesses described scenes of mayhem. The blast, which also wounded 27 people, was heard for miles away and came at a time of day when the area outside the court is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors.

A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, claimed responsibility for the attack, in messages to reporters from the group’s leader, Omar Mukkaram Khurasani. However, an influential commander within the group, Sarbakaf Mohmand, also sent messages disavowing any claim to the attack.

The group quit the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, after the head of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar was killed in a blast in Afghanistan in 2022. Though some members recently rejoined the TTP, others keep their distance, indicating continuing differences among the insurgents.

The TPP is separate to, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has staged smaller attacks in the past but its ability to hit the Pakistani capital is likely to further compound the struggles of the Pakistani government as it faces a resurgent Pakistani Taliban, border tensions and a fragile ceasefire with neighboring Afghanistan.

The attacker tried to “enter the court premises but, failing to do so, targeted a police vehicle,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told journalists. Earlier reports by Pakistani state-run media and two security officials said a car bomb caused the explosion.

Without giving evidence, Naqvi alleged that the attack was “carried out by Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies” linked to the Pakistani Taliban. Still, he said authorities are “looking into all aspects” of the explosion.

In New Delhi, Randhir Jaswal, the spokesperson at the Ministry of External Affairs, rejected Pakistani allegation as baseless. “The international community is well aware of the reality and will not be misled by Pakistan’s desperate diversionary ploys,” he said in a statement.

The attack drew widespread condemnation, including from the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United Nations. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a full investigation and reiterated that “all perpetrators of terrorism must be held accountable,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Outside the court

Police quickly cordoned off the area around the court as a cloud of smoke rose into the sky. The casualties were mostly passersby or those who had arrived for court appointments, according to Islamabad police.

More than a dozen badly wounded people screamed for help as ambulances rushed to the scene. “People started running in all directions,” Mohammad Afzal, who was at the court at the time, told The Associated Press.

Naqvi said the discovery nearby of a severed head, which the police said belonged to the attacker, confirmed the blast was a suicide attack. The attacker also later was spotted in CCTV footage from the site, he said. He said the bomber was not included in the death toll of 12.

Overnight attack at an army-run college

Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces said they foiled an attempt by militants to take cadets hostage at an army-run college overnight, when a suicide car bomber and five other attackers targeted the facility in a northwestern province.

The authorities blamed TTP. The TTP denied involvement in Monday’s attack and on Tuesday, its spokesman Mohammad Khurasani also denied involvement in Tuesday’s attack.

The attack on Monday evening started when a bomber tried to storm the school in Wana, a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province near the Afghan border. The area had until recent years served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaida and other foreign militants.

According to the local police chief, Alamgir Mahsud, two of the militants were quickly killed by troops while three others managed to enter the compound before being cornered in an administrative block. He said the clearance operation was still underway on Tuesday, some 20 hours after the attack.

The block is away from the building housing hundreds of cadets and other staff, who were quickly evacuated to safer places by Pakistani commandos.

There were no immediate reports of casualties among the students or staff. The army has not provided any information about military casualties.

Prime minister promises accountability

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced the two attacks and called for a full investigation, according to a statement issued in Islamabad.

“We will ensure the perpetrators are apprehended and held accountable,” he said.

Sharif described attacks on unarmed civilians as “reprehensible” and added: “We will not allow the blood of innocent Pakistanis to go to waste.”

Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif said on X that the country is in a state of war and laid the blame with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which Islamabad accuses of sheltering the TTP.

Afghanistan “can act to stop terrorism in Pakistan, but bringing this war to Islamabad is a message from Kabul,” Asif said and warned that Pakistan “has the strength to respond fully.”

Pakistan has outlawed the TTP, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, while the United States and the United Nations have designated the group a terrorist organization. The Afghan Taliban takeover in Kabul in 2021 emboldened the TTP, and many of its leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan. Kabul denies it’s protecting the TTP.

Militant attacks in Pakistan have surged in recent years. The deadliest assault on a school occurred in 2014, when a breakaway TTP faction killed 154 people, mostly children, at an army-run school in Peshawar. The military claimed the attackers in Wana wanted to repeat the assault.

Afghanistan-Pakistan peace talks stall

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have risen in recent months. Kabul has blamed Islamabad for drone strikes on Oct. 9 that killed several people in the Afghan capital. Ensuing cross-border fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and militants before Qatar brokered a ceasefire on Oct. 19, which remains in place.

Since then, two rounds of peace talks have been held in Istanbul — the latest on Thursday — but ended without agreement after Kabul refused to provide a written assurance that the TTP and other militant groups would not use Afghan territory against Pakistan.

An earlier, brief ceasefire between Pakistan and the TTP, brokered by Kabul in 2022, collapsed later after the group accused Islamabad of violating it.

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Mahsud reported from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan. Associated Press writer Riaz Khan and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi, contributed to this report.