Bomb attack in Pakistan kills 8, injures 27

At least eight people, including three police officers, have been killed and 27 others injured in a bomb attack at a court compound in northwestern Pakistan.

Police said the attack occurred on Monday when a bomber blew himself up as the officers were trying to stop him from entering the court building in the town of Shabqadar, located some 150 kilometers northwest of the capital Islamabad.

Eyewitnesses described a huge explosion at the scene.

“The army and other law-enforcement agencies have arrived and cordoned off the area,” Gohar Khana, a local police official, said.

Those wounded have been transferred to a local hospital, he added.

Footage by Pakistani news media also showed widespread damage to the site and the remains of at least two burned cars.

Shabqadar - the area where the bombing occurred - is close to the Mohmand tribal region, which is one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in northwest Pakistan. The tribal area has been the scene of several attacks in recent days.

Last week, a remote-controlled roadside bomb targeted a convoy of vehicles travelling in the region, killing two Pakistani employees of the United States Consulate in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

On February 18, gunmen killed nine Pakistani paramilitary personnel in two separate attacks on checkposts in the Mohmand region.

The Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both of those attacks.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in the so-called war on terror. Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping the country.

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