A bomb attack on a bus carrying workers in northwestern Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan, has killed at least eleven people, local authorities announced on Sunday August 20. Amir Muhammad Khan, a senior police official in the region, confirmed to Agence France-Presse the bomb blast and the number of casualties.
The workers, who were constructing a new military post for the Pakistani army, were killed on Saturday by a pipe bomb attached to their vehicle, senior North Waziristan official Rehman Gul Khattak said in a statement.
“It is heartbreaking to learn of the terrorist attack in North Waziristan which claimed the lives of eleven innocent workers. We strongly condemn this senseless act of violence and express our solidarity with the families affected.”Interim Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
North Waziristan is one of the former semi-autonomous tribal areas in the northwest of the country where the Pakistani army has carried out numerous operations against insurgents linked to the Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban, after the offensive in Afghanistan of the United States and its NATO allies in 2001.