The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. There was no immediate comment by the government, but the security and intelligence officials said security personnel were carrying out an operation targeting those who orchestrated the attack.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Pakistan has witnessed a steady increase in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a months-long cease-fire with the government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber targeted a police station’s main gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership was meeting in Islamabad to discuss how to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In recent months. violence has also surged in northwest Pakistan, where security forces often target TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior defence analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said over 900 security forces have been killed in militant attacks in Pakistan since 2022 when TTP ended the cease-fire with the government.
“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan said. He said there is a need for political stability in the country to defeat the insurgents.
Pakistan has experienced a political crisis since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his release.
