A Frontier Constabulary (FC) official was martyred on Monday while eight others, including two civilians, were injured in a blast near Prime Hospital Complex on Peshawar’s Warsak Road, police said.
Warsak Superintendent of Police (SP) Mohammad Arshad Khan confirmed that a vehicle of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa FC’s Mohmand Rifles regiment was targeted in the attack at around 10:30am.
The vehicle was headed towards Peshawar from Machni when the blast occurred, he said.
SP Khan said that one FC official was martyred as a result while six FC officials and two civilians were also injured.
Stating that there was “no prior threat”, he said the blast was carried out using an improvised explosive device (IED).
The SP said that further investigation was under way and that a report by the Bomb Disposal Unit would further clarify the nature of the blast.
The incident comes a day after interim Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti downplayed the increase in militancy, saying there was no need for alarm as “a little surge [in terrorism] is not so big as to make us panic”.
His statement came amid reports of almost daily skirmishes between the security forces and terrorists — the most recent being the infiltration attempt in Chitral in which over a dozen attackers were killed while several troops embraced martyrdom.
Last week, a convoy of security forces narrowly escaped a suicide attack on Miramshah road in Bannu.
Last month, police and security forces repulsed three midnight militant attacks at as many locations in an area bordering the Kohat district. No casualties were reported.
Uptick in terrorist attacks
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities in recent months, especially in KP and Balochistan, after the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended its ceasefire with the government in November last year.
On August 22, six soldiers embraced martyrdom in an exchange of fire in South Waziristan district. At least four terrorists were killed in the gun battle.
In July, as many as 12 soldiers of the Pakistan Army embraced martyrdom in separate military operations in the Zhob and Sui areas of Balochistan.
That was the military’s highest single-day death toll from terrorist attacks reported this year. Before this, 10 personnel were martyred in a ‘fire raid’ in Balochistan’s Kech district in February 2022.
A report released in July by the think tank Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies said the first half of the current year witnessed a steady and alarming rise in terror and suicide attacks, claiming the lives of 389 people across the country.
