suicide

Nov. 24 (UPI) — At least three officers of Pakistan’s Federal Constabulary were killed Monday and 12 people, including civilians, were injured in a suicide bombing at the force’s regional headquarters in Peshawar in the northwest of the country.

Two loud explosions were heard coming from the compound at about 8:10 a.m. local time, with an official saying five security officials and seven civilians had been injured.

Calling it a “foiled terrorist plot,” authorities said two armed attackers were shot dead before they were able to enter the building.

“Initially, three militants tried to attack the headquarters. One terrorist blew himself up at the gate, while two others tried to enter the premises but were gunned down by FC personnel,” Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Mian Saeed Ahmad told reporters.

Ahmad said authorities were already on high alert due to the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province where Peshawar is located, which borders Afghanistan, and where the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan, has carried out a series of deadly attacks.

A TTP splinter group called Jamatul Ahrar said it carried out the attack.

“The perpetrators of this incident should be identified as soon as possible and brought to justice,” said Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The Federal Constabulary is a national paramilitary police force responsible for internal security as well as tackling organized crime and drug production and trafficking.

Monday’s attack came two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 12 people and injured 36 after detonating a car bomb outside a court building in Islamabad, which Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asim blamed on the TTP and its backers in Afghanistan.

The government said the Taliban regime in Kabul backs the TTP, which has been waging a campaign of violence against Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and launching attacks against Pakistan’s military and government in a bid to replace the secular state with an Islamic one.

Tensions escalated in early October when Pakistan mounted airstrikes on TTP targets in Kabul and three other cities. The Taliban responded by launching deadly attacks along its border with Pakistan in which 23 soldiers were killed and at least 29 were injured.

Pakistan carried out retaliatory strikes that officials said killed 200 Taliban-backed Afghan militants and claimed Pakistani forces had destroyed Afghan terrorist training camps.

In September, six soldiers were killed in an attack on an FC compound in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district, 100 miles southwest of Peshawar. Five militants that authorities said belonged to the TTP were killed in the ensuing firefight.

The TTP is proscribed by the United States and Britain, among others, as a foreign terror organization.

Security camera video shows the moment suicide bombers attacked a security complex in Pakistan. Six people were killed in total, including two attackers who were shot dead.

Islamabad, Pakistan – At about 12:30pm (07:30 GMT) on Tuesday afternoon, Khalid Khan, a 25-year-old lawyer, was waiting for his lunch with his friend, Fawad Khan, at the cafeteria of Islamabad’s District Judicial Complex.

Suddenly, a loud boom shook the cafeteria and the entire judicial complex.

“I first thought that the roof will collapse on me,” Khalid told Al Jazeera outside the complex, two hours later.

The complex had been hit by a suicide attack. According to official figures, at least 12 people were killed and more than 30 were injured, several of them critically, when the bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the court complex.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif blamed “India-backed proxies” operating from Afghanistan for carrying out the attack.

India, where a car explosion on Monday evening killed at least 13 people, said that it “unequivocally” rejects the “baseless and unfounded allegations being made by an obviously delirious Pakistani leadership”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday evening, Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said Islamabad was attempting to “deflect the attention of its own public from the ongoing military-inspired constitutional subversion and power-grab unfolding within the country”, appearing to refer to the 27th constitutional amendment being debated in Pakistan’s National Assembly.

“The international community is well aware of the reality, and will not be misled by Pakistan’s desperate diversionary ploys,” Jaiswal added.

The constitutional amendment has sparked criticism from activists, sitting judges and opposition parties for granting lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution for the country’s senior-most military officers, and for setting up a parallel Federal Constitutional Court, which many fear could undermine the Supreme Court.

But on Tuesday, it was the District Judicial Complex in Islamabad that was shaken, as the impact blast there reverberated across South Asia.

The sound of the explosion was heard in nearby residential areas and office buildings. Soon after, videos of the incident went viral on social media, showing flames and plumes of smoke rising from a charred vehicle near a security barrier at the compound’s entrance.

In other clips, lawyers were seen rushing out to help those on the road as security personnel surrounded the premises.

Witnesses said that at the time of the blast, nearly 2,000 people were inside the complex, including judges, lawyers, litigants and court staff.

They described an explosion so powerful that windows in several courtrooms were shattered, and body parts were strewn across the site, including the head of the suicide bomber.

With different gates for entry and exit, and the main gate closed immediately after the blast, police initially instructed people to stay inside before allowing them to leave about 25 minutes later.

Muhammad Shehzad Butt, a 52-year-old lawyer, was among them. He said he had been heading towards the cafeteria when the explosion occurred.

“It was utter pandemonium, and in the panic, most of the people were trying to exit the complex, causing havoc at the gate, while many others tried to get back inside the building,” he told Al Jazeera outside the complex.

After the attack, authorities cordoned off the area, placing barriers to keep the media from entering or approaching the site where the suicide bomber detonated the explosives.

A large number of journalists gathered outside the compound, hoping to capture visuals, but officials initially denied them access.

By then, most litigants had left, though some lawyers lingered nearby, speaking with reporters and YouTube vloggers recording their accounts.

Butt, the lawyer, said that when he arrived at court in the morning, security checks appeared routine but thorough. However, he heard from colleagues that there was an additional layer of screening that day.

This was corroborated by Khalid, the lawyer from Quetta who has worked in Islamabad for the past five years.

“This morning, when Fawad and I reached the court premises, we had to wait slightly longer as there was extra checking at the entrance. There was no concern, but we just felt that maybe some VIP might be visiting the court or some delegation,” he said.

Despite the dozen people killed, including one lawyer, both Khalid and Fawad, who is originally from Swat, said they felt no fear about returning to work the next day.

“We have seen enough of this [violence],” Khalid said. “These things don’t scare us.”

A suicide bombing has killed at least 12 people near the entrance of a district court in Pakistan’s capital. Armed group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar says it was responsible for the bloodshed.