Peshawar: A suicide bomber killed 17 people and injured 23 in northwest Pakistan Monday, in an attack which the Taliban said was revenge for the hanging of an Islamist assassin last week.
The bomber attacked as lawyers and litigants were arriving at a court complex during the morning rush hour in the town of Shabqadar.
Senior police official Fayaz Khan said 17 people had been killed and 23 wounded after the bomber blew himself up inside the complex, with the toll confirmed by a local administration official.
Sohail Khalid, district police chief in Charsadda district where Shabqadar is located, confirmed the suicide attack and said two of the dead were policemen.
"We are investigating the nature of the blast. According to initial reports, a suicide bomber entered the complex and a policeman on duty tried to stop him but he blew himself up," Khalid said.
The Pakistani Taliban's Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it avenged the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri, feted as a hero by Islamists after he gunned down the liberal governor of Punjab in 2011 over a call to reform the country's blasphemy law.
Qadri was hanged last Monday, with his funeral bringing up to 100,000 people on to the streets. The Taliban also said Monday's blast targeted the court complex as Pakistan's judiciary are strengthening "un-Islamic laws", Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the group said.
Police official Khan said a woman was among the dead, and two children were among the injured. Local TV channels showed footage of victims being rushed to hospitals soon after the blast.
Shabqadar is near the Mohmand tribal district, one of seven semi-autonomous regions bordering Afghanistan where militants from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban had established bases in the past.
Islamabad launched a military offensive in the tribal areas in 2014 that has reportedly killed thousands of militants and pushed the rest over the border to Afghanistan, resulting in improved security inside Pakistan.
However, insurgents associated with Pakistan's homegrown Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan occasionally carry out attacks from bases in Afghanistan. Shabqadar is some 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of Charsadda, where extremists attacked a university on January 20 in a rampage that left 21 dead.
