Wazoo, Geo News reported Sunday. Terrorists blew up a vehicle carrying labourers by detonating explosives, Deputy Commissioner Rehan Gul Khattak said. The blast left 11 labourers dead and two severely maimed.
Officials said the maimed and the bodies have been shifted to the hospital.
Government officials said the dear departed belonged to the South Waziristan tehsil of Makin and Wana.
| Dawn adds: |
There were also reports that a total of 16 labourers were on their way to South Wazoo when an bomb went off near the vehicle.
| Update from The Times of Israel at 1:05 p.m. EDT: |
“The laborers were working at an under-construction post for the Pakistan army,” Khattack said.
The militant assaults have been focused in regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil — a charge Kabul denies.
Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban group, Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has waged a growing campaign against security officials, including police officers.
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation in the former tribal areas starting in 2014 largely restored order. The seven remote districts that border Afghanistan, of which North Waziristan is one, were later brought under the control of Pakistani authorities after the passage of legislation in 2018. Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas have become emboldened since the return of the Afghan Taliban.