Published : 19 Sep 2026, 12:20 PM
Updated : 19 Sep 2026, 05:48 PM
A suicide bomb attack at a mosque and subsequent gun battle in Pakistan’s restive northwest have killed at least 31 people, including 16 police personnel, with dozens more injured, Al Jazeera reports.
An explosives-laden car was rammed into the entrance of a mosque at a police headquarters in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, near the Afghan border, as worshippers gathered for Friday prayers.
A faction of the Pakistan Taliban, known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack, the Qatari broadcaster said.
Ittehadul Mujahideen, or Mujahideen Alliance, linked to Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, said it carried out the suicide bombing, it added.
Provincial police chief Zulfikar Hameed confirmed the bombing. After the explosion, gunmen attempted to enter the police compound and exchanged fire with officers.
Sources told Al Jazeera that at least 75 people were injured.
Senior rescue official Bilal Faizi said most of the wounded were worshippers, the Associated Press reported.
The mosque was badly damaged and the outer wall of the police station collapsed. Residents said they heard the blast from some distance away.
Al Jazeera correspondent Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said at least six attackers were killed in the fighting.
Hyder said Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of allowing the TTP and other groups that carry out attacks to operate from Afghan territory. Officials in Kabul deny the accusation.
The TTP is separate from, but allied with, the Taliban, which returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Kohat is close to the Afghan border and is a main route to North Waziristan, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, Hyder said, adding that those areas had seen deadly attacks in recent months.
Michael Semple, a visiting professor at Queen’s University Belfast and a former EU representative in Afghanistan who negotiated with the Afghan Taliban, said the armed groups were trying to overthrow the Pakistan government.
Sophisticated attacks such as the one in Kohat require planning, logistics and training, Semple told Al Jazeera.
He said the attack appeared to fit a pattern in which the Afghan Taliban allegedly provides sanctuary to al-Qaeda and different TTP factions for training.
The tension has led Pakistan and Afghanistan to launch intermittent cross-border attacks.
The Kohat attack came a day after a roadside bomb killed six soldiers in a security forces convoy in northwestern Hangu district.
Government troops raided different areas on Thursday and killed 10 suspected Taliban fighters, the military and police said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bomb attack and directed authorities to accelerate rescue operations.
