9 killed in twin bombing of Pakistan military site

Shafaq News/ Nine civilians, including three children and two women, were killed, on Tuesday, in a twin car bomb attack on a military barracks in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border.

A police official said that "shortly after iftar (the evening meal to break the fast), two suicide bombers drove explosives-laden vehicles to the gate of Bannu barracks" in the mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

"The main gate was destroyed, and several attackers then attempted to storm the barracks. Security forces at the scene responded with gunfire," the official, who requested anonymity, added. The explosions left large craters and damaged at least eight nearby homes and a mosque.

An intelligence official stated that 12 attackers were involved, while the police confirmed that six were killed, in addition to the two suicide bombers.

A faction of Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s group, which supports Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban and shares its ideology, claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that "a number of our fighters are inside the barracks."

The assault comes just days after a suicide bombing at the Haqqania Seminary Mosque, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which killed six people, including the head of the institution—a school that has educated several senior Pakistani and Afghan Taliban leaders.