By Staff Reporter
SWAT: The death toll from a suicide bombing outside a police station in Swat Valley rose to 17 on Monday, as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for an attack that struck during a rally against lawlessness in the restive region.
Three people who had been receiving hospital treatment for their injuries died on Monday, taking the total number of fatalities from Sunday’s bombing to 17, including seven police officers and 10 civilians, according to police in Swat district, part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan’s northwest. One of the dead is believed to have been the bomber himself.
Fida Hussain, a regional police official, sad the bomber had been stopped by police at the entrance to Kabal police station and detonated his explosives after officers attempted to search him. The blast tore through a crowd gathered at the adjoining Kabal Chowk, where residents had assembled for a demonstration organised by the Swat Aman Jirga, a local tribal council, to protest the worsening lawlessness and police inaction against militants operating in the valley.
At least 34 people were wounded in the explosion, according to a spokesman for Rescue 1122, the province’s emergency rescue service, which said more than 50 of its personnel had been deployed to the scene. Twelve of the injured, including eight police officers and four civilians, remained under treatment at Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital on Monday.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said in a statement that it had carried out the bombing, according to Reuters, ending a day of uncertainty over who was behind the attack. No group had claimed responsibility by Monday afternoon, more than 24 hours after the blast.
Police said an operation had been launched to identify and arrest anyone who may have assisted in planning or carrying out the attack. The Counter Terrorism Department has registered a first information report against unidentified terrorists.
Funerals held for slain officers
The bodies of the seven police officers killed in the bombing were laid to rest with full official honours. Funeral prayers for two of the constables, Mukarram Khan and Hussain Khan, were held on Monday at the Javed Iqbal Shaheed Police Lines, where a police contingent presented a guard of honour and floral wreaths were placed on their coffins. The ceremony was attended by Malakand Regional Police Officer Syed Fida Hassan Shah, Swat District Police Officer Muhammad Umar Khan and other senior officers. The 10 civilians killed in the attack were buried in their home areas.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s police chief, Inspector General Zulfikar Hameed, visited the wounded in hospital on Monday. “Our police personnel have high morale,” he said, according to a post on the force’s official social media account. “The cowardly attacks of terrorists will be given a befitting response.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement that he was gripped by “deep grief and sorrow” over the bombing.
Chief minister visits the wounded
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s chief minister, Sohail Afridi, travelled to Swat on Monday to meet the families of those killed. He was accompanied by the province’s special assistant for home affairs, Tariq Saeed, chief secretary Shahab Ali Shah and the provincial police chief.
Afridi visited Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan Hospital in Saidu Sharif to check on the condition of the injured and instructed hospital staff to ensure they received the best available treatment. He later chaired a security meeting at the Jirga Hall in Saidu Sharif, where he was briefed on the law and order situation across Malakand division. He said there would be “no compromise” on security in Swat and Malakand and ordered a full-scale operation against militants in the area.
Markets and courts shut in protest
Lawyers across Swat and Upper Swat suspended court proceedings on Monday in a strike called to condemn the bombing, while traders in Kabal tehsil pulled down shutters in a separate show of protest. Tribal elders, traders, lawyers and youth representatives said they would hold a demonstration at Nishat Chowk in Mingora on 7 August, calling for lasting peace and demanding the government take firmer action against militant groups active in the valley.
Sunday’s bombing is the latest and deadliest in a series of attacks that have targeted police and paramilitary forces across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent months, as Pakistan grapples with a marked escalation in militant violence along its border with Afghanistan.
Data from the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies shows the toll the campaign has taken on both sides. In the province’s settled districts, security personnel deaths in terrorism-related incidents rose from 12 in June to 38 in July, while militant deaths climbed from 37 to 108 over the same period — an increase of 192 per cent. Civilian deaths in those areas fell by 73 per cent, from 26 to seven, with one member of a local peace committee also killed. In the province’s merged tribal districts, security force deaths rose from six to 11 while militant deaths fell from 72 to 55; civilian deaths there rose 86 per cent, from seven to 13.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan of directing the violence from sanctuaries across the border in Afghanistan, a charge the Taliban administration in Kabul has consistently denied. The dispute has become one of the most persistent sources of friction between the two governments since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021, souring a relationship that once saw Pakistan host many of the movement’s leaders and fighters.
Pakistani security forces will continue intelligence-based operations across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa “until lasting peace is established and terrorism is eliminated,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported on Monday, citing security sources. The operations, in which forces act on specific intelligence rather than mounting broad offensives, form the backbone of the military’s Azm-e-Istehkam counter-insurgency campaign, launched roughly two months ago.
Radio Pakistan said several militants had been killed in a separate operation over the weekend in the Khatti Kili area of North Waziristan, where security forces said they had destroyed militant hideouts and recovered weapons and ammunition. Several other fighters were believed to have been wounded, it said, adding that forces were taking care to protect civilians and their property during such raids.
Swat, once the epicentre of Pakistan’s war against the Pakistani Taliban and the site of a major military offensive that drove militants from the valley more than a decade ago, has seen growing alarm among residents in recent years over signs the group is regaining a foothold, prompting a string of peace marches by locals demanding tougher security measures.
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