Federal Constabulary troops stand guard Monday outside the regional headquarters of the force in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, following a deadly attack by militants. Photo by Bilawal Arbab/EPA
At least three officers of Pakistan’s Federal Constabulary were killed Monday and 12 people, including civilians, were injured in a suicide bombing at the force’s regional headquarters in Peshawar in the northwest of the country.
Two loud explosions were heard coming from the compound at about 8:10 a.m. local time, with an official saying five security officials and seven civilians had been injured.
Calling it a “foiled terrorist plot,” authorities said two armed attackers were shot dead before they were able to enter the building.
“Initially, three militants tried to attack the headquarters. One terrorist blew himself up at the gate, while two others tried to enter the premises but were gunned down by FC personnel,” Peshawar Capital City Police Officer Mian Saeed Ahmad told reporters.
Ahmad said authorities were already on high alert due to the security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province where Peshawar is located, which borders Afghanistan, and where the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan, has carried out a series of deadly attacks.
A TTP splinter group called Jamatul Ahrar said it carried out the attack.
“The perpetrators of this incident should be identified as soon as possible and brought to justice,” said Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
The Federal Constabulary is a national paramilitary police force responsible for internal security as well as tackling organized crime and drug production and trafficking.
Monday’s attack came two weeks after a suicide bomber killed 12 people and injured 36 after detonating a car bomb outside a court building in Islamabad, which Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Asim blamed on the TTP and its backers in Afghanistan.
The government said the Taliban regime in Kabul backs the TTP, which has been waging a campaign of violence against Shiite Muslims in Pakistan and launching attacks against Pakistan’s military and government in a bid to replace the secular state with an Islamic one.
Tensions escalated in early October when Pakistan mounted airstrikes on TTP targets in Kabul and three other cities. The Taliban responded by launching deadly attacks along its border with Pakistan in which 23 soldiers were killed and at least 29 were injured.
Pakistan carried out retaliatory strikes that officials said killed 200 Taliban-backed Afghan militants and claimed Pakistani forces had destroyed Afghan terrorist training camps.
In September, six soldiers were killed in an attack on an FC compound in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district, 100 miles southwest of Peshawar. Five militants that authorities said belonged to the TTP were killed in the ensuing firefight.
The TTP is proscribed by the United States and Britain, among others, as a foreign terror organization.
