Pakistan suicide bombing targets police facility in Kohat
Emergency services rushed to the scene of the attack, which targeted a police headquarters in KohatImage: Basit Shah/AFPAdvertisementA bomb attack in Kohat, Pakistan, near the Afghan border killed at least 16 people, police said on Friday.
No group immediately claimed responsibility but Pakistan's president blamed the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP).
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan's Taliban rulers are fraught, with Islamabad alleging that the TTP uses safe havens across the Afghan border to plot and train for attacks in Pakistan.
Stated casualty figures varied amid ongoing rescue operations on Friday after the explosives-laden car caused a large explosion and damaged a mosque at a police compound.
But provincial police chief Zulfikar Hameed told Reuters that at least 16 people, including five police personnel, were killed in the attack. A rescue official also told AFP that five police officers, 10 civilians and the attacker had died.
Figures on the number of wounded also varied but were put above 30 or even 50.
Police said in a statement that the blast occurred near a mosque as officers, their relatives and other civilians were worshipping inside.
They referred to it as a suicide attack.
Police also said that its forces and other attackers engaged in a subsequent gun battle after at least two other militants tried to to enter the facility.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and expressed sorrow over the casualties. He directed authorities to accelerate rescue operations. The Interior Ministry said that the "cowardly actions" of the attackers would not weaken "the nation's resolve."
President Asif Ali Zardari appeared to assign the blame to the TTP Tehreek-e-Taliban group.
"The complete elimination of Fitna-al-Khawarij and terrorists operating with foreign backing it essential for national security," Zardari said, using another term for the TTP.
Pakistan blames the increase of attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the border province of Balochistan further south in large part on the Taliban administration in neighboring Afghanistan.
The Taliban rejects these allegations.
The accusations have sparked a bitter rift and even incidents of armed conflict between the neighboring countries.
Pakistan has carried out airstrikes it says targets militants taking refuge on Afghan soil, including this June.
Authorities in Kabul have in turn decried these attacks and reported civilian casualties.
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