Terror in northwest Pakistan: At least 16 dead in car bomb attack

dpa | According to police, at least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured in a car bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan. The attack occurred on the premises of a police headquarters in the town of Kohat, a local police official said. Accordingly, the vehicle loaded with explosives rammed a gate and exploded.

A mosque on the police grounds was also damaged by the force of the blast, the police representative said. The attack occurred during Friday prayers. There was great concern that the number of victims would be even higher. More than 50 injured people were taken to a nearby hospital, a doctor told the German Press Agency.

Television footage from the Pakistani broadcaster Geo showed people fleeing the scene of the attack in panic. Lifeless bodies could be seen on the ground. Ambulances took victims to nearby clinics.

Initially, no one claimed responsibility for the attack in the troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Both a regional branch of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS) and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) are active in the Afghan-Pakistani border area. The security situation there had become increasingly worse in recent years.

Just at the beginning of August, 14 people were killed in a suicide attack in the Swat Valley in the same province. The attack at that time also took place in front of a police station. Hundreds of people demonstrated there against the increasing violence in the region. There were also attacks against police officers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the previous months.

Pakistan accuses the Islamist Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan of providing shelter to terrorist groups in the border area. The leadership in Kabul rejects the allegations. In the spring of 2026, the conflict between neighboring countries escalated. Since then there has been regular exchanges of fire