17 killed, injured in Pakistan suicide bombing attack
Two suicide bombers attacked a sprawling compound housing a police station and government offices in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least two police officers and wounding 15 other people.
The attack occurred in the Bara neighborhood in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, provincial police chief Akhtar Hayat said. He said part of the compound collapsed after the bombing, ABC reported.
The explosive vest on one of the suicide bombers detonated when police opened fire after coming under attack, Hayat said.
Gunshots were heard after the bombing, said Bilal Faizi, a spokesman for the provincial emergency service, and an exchange of gunfire followed. The wounded people included police officers and civilians, officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Bara, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but suspicion was likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which has stepped up attacks in recent months.
The latest attack came hours after Pakistani Taliban shot and killed two police officers and wounded two others in an overnight gun attack at a roadside checkpoint in the city of Peshawar.
The gun attack took place in the Regi Model Town neighborhood, area police chief Arshad Khan said. A search operation was launched to find and apprehend the attackers, who fled the scene in the darkness, he said.
