Motorcycle bomb at police station kills at least 2 and wounds several in northwestern Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Explosives rigged to a motorcycle went off near the gate of a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing at least two people, including a child, and wounding several others, police and rescue officials said. The blast also damaged nearby shops.

The attack took place in Bannu, a district in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, local police official Fida Mohammad said.

He did not provide any further details and only said the dead and wounded had been taken to a nearby hospital. Though no group immediately claimed responsibility, suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP.

Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in recent years, with the government frequently blaming the outlawed TTP. The group is separate from but closely allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban who returned to power in 2021. The increase in attacks has strained relations between Islamabad and Kabul, as Pakistan accuses the TTP of operating freely inside Afghanistan, a charge both the TTP and Kabul deny.