A suicide bomber struck outside the gates of a district court in Islamabad on Tuesday, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people, Pakistan’s interior minister said, the latest in an uptick in violence across the country.
Witnesses described scenes of mayhem in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, which also wounded 27 people. The blast was heard several kilometres away and came at a busy time of day when the area outside the court is typically crowded with hundreds of visitors attending court hearings.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group, later claimed responsibility for the attack.
The group has staged smaller attacks in the past years, but its ability to hit the Pakistani capital is likely to further compound the struggles of the Pakistani government as it faces a resurgent Pakistani Taliban, border tensions and a fragile ceasefire with neighbouring Afghanistan.
The attacker tried to “enter the court premises but, failing to do so, targeted a police vehicle,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told journalists. Earlier reports by Pakistani state-run media and two security officials said a car bomb had caused the explosion.
Naqvi alleged that the attack was “carried out by Indian-backed elements and Afghan Taliban proxies” linked to the Pakistani Taliban. Still, he said authorities were “looking into all aspects” of the explosion.