At least seven people were killed and dozens injured in an attack on a counter terrorism police station in Pakistan on Monday that caused the building to collapse, officials said.
Multiple explosions have ripped through a building in the city of Kabul in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the latest in a series of high-profile attacks targeting police in Pakistan.
“There were explosions at the police station which led to the complete collapse of the building,” said Khalid Sohail, a senior police officer in the local counter-terrorism unit.
Bilal Faizi, spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial emergency services, said that “at least seven dead bodies have been pulled out of the collapsed building, while 44 injured have been taken to nearby hospitals.”
“There was a series of two to three bomb blasts,” Akhtar Hayat Gandapur, inspector general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police.
Estimated death toll
He estimated the death toll at eight and the number of injured at more than 40, “with the majority of casualties being policemen”.
The attack occurred on the last day Pakistan celebrated the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but two attacks on major police bases since the start of the year have been linked to the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
In January, a suicide bomber detonated his vest inside a mosque in a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers as the building collapsed and debris rained down on worshippers.
The following month, five were killed when a TTP suicide squad attacked a police compound in the southern port city of Karachi, sparking an hour-long firefight.
The TTP has long targeted law enforcement officials whom it accuses of carrying out extrajudicial executions. Pakistan has seen a dramatic increase in attacks since the Taliban took control of Kabul, focusing on its border areas with Afghanistan, and Islamabad says offensives are being launched from Afghan soil.
History of TTP
The TTP was formed in 2007 when Pakistani militants fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan split off to focus attacks on Islamabad in retaliation for supporting the US invasion after the 9/11 attacks.
At the height of their power, they controlled swaths of northwestern Pakistan, including the Swat Valley, but were largely driven out by the military after a 2014 school raid that killed nearly 150 people, mostly schoolchildren.
In the Swat Valley, the then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai was also the TTP’s headshot in 2012 during a campaign for girls’ education, which later won her the Nobel Peace Prize. A shaky six-month ceasefire between the TTP and Islamabad failed in November.
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