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A powerful car bomb exploded outside a massive district court in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, security officials said.
The blast, which was heard miles away and also damaged several vehicles outside the court, occurred at a time when the area is usually packed with hundreds of visitors attending hearings.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but Pakistan is grappling with terrorist attacks and resurgence across the country Pakistani Taliban.
Two security officials told The Associated Press that a car bomb caused the explosion and killed 11 people. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the record.
Earlier, Pakistan TV had said that at least 13 people were injured in the blast. TV reported that most of the casualties were passersby or people who had come for court appointments.
There was no immediate comment from islamabad Police said they are still investigating.
Earlier on Tuesday, 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 Pakistani Taliban targeted the facility in the northwestern province.
The attack began on Monday evening, when an attacker tried to attack the Cadet College in Wana city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Afghan Limit. The area served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign terrorists until recent years.
According to local police chief Alamgir Mehsud, two terrorists were killed instantly by the troops, while three terrorists managed to enter the compound before being surrounded in the administrative block. Mehsud said army commandos were among the forces carrying out the sweep and intermittent firing continued on Tuesday.
The administrative block is away from the building which houses hundreds of cadets and other staff.
The Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, which is separate from but affiliated with Afghanistan’s Taliban, has denied any involvement in the college attack. The group’s morale has increased since the Taliban took power. Kabul In 2021, and many of its leaders and fighters are believed to have taken refuge in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has seen an increase in terrorist attacks in recent years. The deadliest attack on a school was in 2014 when Taliban gunmen killed 154 people, mostly children, at a military-run school in Peshawar. According to the army, the attackers on Monday wanted to repeat what happened during the 2014 attack in Peshawar.
Tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan has increased in recent months. Kabul blamed Islamabad for drone strikes on October 9 that killed several people in the Afghan capital and vowed to retaliate. Dozens of soldiers, civilians and terrorists were killed in the ensuing cross-border fighting. Queue A ceasefire took place on 19 October, which still stands.
Since then, two rounds of peace talks have been held in Istanbul – the latest on Thursday – but ended without agreement after Kabul refused to give written assurances that the TTP and other militant groups would not use Afghan territory against Pakistan. A brief ceasefire between Pakistan and the TTP brokered by Kabul in 2022 later broke after the group accused Islamabad of violating it.
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Mehsud reported from Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan. Associated Press writer Riaz Khan contributed to this story from Peshawar, Pakistan.