PESHAWAR (AFP) – A suicide bomber detonated at a checkpoint in western Pakistan on Saturday, killing eight people and wounding five more, officials said.
The bomber set off the blast from the back of a motorbike rickshaw near the town of Mir Ali in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a police officer told AFP.
Four police officers were killed alongside two members of a state paramilitary force and two civilians in the attack near the border with Afghanistan, he said. “Among the five injured personnel, the condition of three is critical, and they have been transferred to a local military hospital,” the police officer said.
A government official confirmed the same toll of dead and wounded.
The attack was claimed by a little-known group calling itself “Aswad ul-Harb”.
Last year, the country saw more suicide attacks than any year since 2014, according to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies.
There were 29 suicide attacks registered, killing 329 people in Pakistan’s deadliest year in a decade.
