Bomber attacks Islamabad court, killing 12 as Pakistan condemns

Islamabad, Pakistan — A suicide bomb attack outside district court buildings in a residential area of ​​the Pakistani capital killed at least a dozen people on Tuesday, Pakistan’s interior minister said.

“At 12:39 pm (02:39 ET), a suicide attack was carried out in Kachehri (district courts)… so far 12 people have been martyred and around 27 are injured,” Home Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters at the scene of the incident.

“When I entered the court building, there was a huge explosion. I thought the entire court building would collapse on me,” Zahid Khan, who works as a lawyer’s assistant at the court, told News themezone’ Sami Yousafzai. “When I went up, I saw people lying on the ground around the fire…Just three minutes before, I had been in that exact spot while parking my bike.”

“I saw many people injured and bloody on the road,” he said.

He noted the timing of the attack, which came a week after the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP, along with some elements of the Afghan Taliban issued threats against Pakistani cities.

Pakistani later issued a statement saying the government “strongly condemns the cowardly suicide attack in Islamabad that claimed 12 innocent lives, including members of the judiciary.”

“The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility for this reprehensible act, which aims to spread fear and undermine Pakistan’s justice system,” the statement said.

The suspected suicide attack in Islamabad also came a day after militants stormed a military school in Wana, Pakistan’s South Waziristan region. Two militants were killed in the assault, authorities said.

The TTP, in statements shared with News themezone, denied involvement in the Islamabad and Wana attacks, but Pakistani security officials and analysts said the group was likely responsible for both.

Last week, a TTP source told News themezone that the group considers its campaign against the Pakistani government a “holy fight,” warning that it has “human and technical resources in all major cities” and plans to mount new large-scale attacks.

The attacker tried on Tuesday “to enter the court premises but, failing to do so, he targeted a police vehicle,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters. It alleged the attack was “carried out by Indian-backed elements and representatives of the Afghan Taliban” linked to the TTP, but said authorities were “investigating all aspects” of the blast.

In a statement issued later Tuesday, Indian government spokesperson Shri Randhir Jaiswal said the country “unequivocally rejects Pakistan’s baseless and baseless allegations,” calling them “a predictable tactic by Pakistan to concoct false narratives against India.”

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif blamed Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers for allowing Tuesday’s attack to take place. The neighbors have long had tense relations, and Islamabad accused Afghan authorities of allowing the TTP to operate within Afghanistan’s borders.

“Kabul’s rulers can stop terrorism in Pakistan, but today’s suicide attack at Islamabad district courts proves that this is a national war,” Asif said in a statement on Tuesday. “Anyone who believes that the Pakistan army is only fighting on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and in remote Balochistan should take this attack as a wake-up call. This is a war for all of Pakistan.”

Pakistan and Afghanistan held two rounds of talks aimed at addressing mutual security concerns in October and earlier this month, but both ended without any solid agreement between the neighbors, and Asif said in his statement after Tuesday’s Islamabad blast that, “in this environment, it would be futile to pin higher hopes on successful negotiations with the rulers in Kabul.”

A member of the Afghan Taliban negotiating team told News themezone on Tuesday that the talks had failed due to Pakistan’s unrealistic demands that the Taliban limit the TTP.

“It was far beyond our control and capability,” the Afghan Taliban official said, accusing Pakistan of failing to effectively counter the TTP itself.

The blast in Islamabad also came a day after a massive explosion rocked the Red Fort, a major tourist destination in India’s neighboring capital New Delhi.

That explosion killed eight people, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that the “conspirators” behind the explosion “will not be spared,” vowing that “all those responsible will be brought to justice.”

Pakistan and India are nuclear-armed neighbors who have often clashed, usually over the disputed border region of Kashmir. Dozens of people were killed in May when India launched military strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and inside Pakistan, saying it was targeting militants in the country who had carried out multiple attacks against India.