At least 21 killed in bombing at mosque near police offices in Pakistan
Dozens more have been wounded.
A powerful bomb has exploded at a mosque near a building housing police offices in north-western Pakistan as gunmen tried to storm the compound, killing at least 21 people and wounding 80 others, police and rescue officials said.
Among those killed and wounded were police officers attending prayers at the mosque.
The co-ordinated assault was the latest in a surge of militant violence near the border with Afghanistan where Pakistani Taliban militants have increasingly targeted police and other security forces as the government intensifies operations against them.
The bombing occurred in Kohat, a district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
An attacker apparently rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the mosque, said Zulfiqar Hameed, the provincial police chief.
The police compound housed counter-terrorism police, who had carried out operations against militants across the province in recent years.
Most of those killed were police officers, hospital officials said. Bilal Faizi, a senior rescue official, said most of the dead and wounded had been attending prayers at the mosque.
Photos from the scene showed the outer wall of the police offices had collapsed and the mosque was badly damaged. Smoke rose over the site after the blast, which witnesses and residents said was heard far away, followed by gunfire.
Inside the mosque, piles of bricks and concrete buried the floor, wires dangled from cracked walls and daylight poured through holes in the roof, while a ceiling fan hung above the wreckage.
Residents said the exchange of fire continued hours after the co-ordinated attack.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed sorrow over the casualties. He directed authorities to accelerate rescue operations.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The attack comes a day after a roadside bomb struck a security forces convoy in the north-western Hangu district and killed six soldiers.
Government troops also conducted raids in various areas on Thursday and killed 10 militants believed to be members of the Pakistani Taliban, the military and police said.
Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks on police and civilians in recent years. In 2023, a suicide bomber killed 101 people in an attack inside a mosque in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The group is separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in 2021.
Pakistan often accuses Kabul of sheltering the TTP and turning a blind eye to cross-border militant attacks. The government in Kabul has denied the allegations.
However, tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan have remained high since Pakistan targeted alleged TTP hideouts in Afghanistan in 2025. The strikes triggered border clashes, prompting Qatar and Turkey to mediate a ceasefire. China later facilitated peace talks, but the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
Friday’s bombing came a day after Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met Mr Sharif, Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir and intelligence chief Lt Gen Asim Malik.
Mr Kalin said Turkey would continue to make efforts to help resolve the tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan through dialogue, the news agency reported.
Mr Kalin discussed a range of issues with the Pakistani leadership, including efforts to ease tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Pakistani officials.
The Turkish intelligence chief also met the government in Afghanistan. Hamdullah Fitrat, deputy spokesperson for the Afghanistan Taliban, said on Thursday that top officials in Kabul held talks with Mr Kalin and a senior Qatari security official. The talks addressed tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan.