Sixteen Pakistani soldiers were killed and at least 10 others wounded after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military convoy in the country’s volatile northwest on Saturday, local officials said.
The attack took place in North Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the Afghan border — an area long plagued by militant activity. The powerful blast also left 19 civilians injured, a local government official confirmed to AFP.
“A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a military convoy. The blast killed 16 soldiers, injured 10 army personnel and 19 civilians,” the official said.
A police officer stationed in the region said the explosion caused the roofs of two nearby houses to collapse, resulting in injuries to six children. “The explosion also caused the roofs of two houses to collapse, injuring six children,” the officer told AFP.
The condition of at least four injured soldiers was reported to be critical.
Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by the suicide unit of the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, a militant faction aligned with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The group has been active in the tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and has previously carried out similar attacks on security forces.
Violence has spiked in Pakistan’s border regions since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused Kabul’s Taliban-led government of providing shelter to militants who cross over into Pakistan to launch attacks. The Afghan Taliban have consistently denied the allegations.
According to an AFP tally, nearly 290 people—most of them security personnel—have been killed in attacks carried out by anti-government armed groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the restive Balochistan province since the start of the year.
Earlier in March, the Pakistan Army claimed to have killed 10 TTP-linked militants following a suicide attack on a Frontier Corps camp near the Jandola checkpost in South Waziristan.
In the same month, personnel from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) targeted the train Jaffar Express train near Gudalar and Piru Kunri. This incident saw the killing of 21 passengers and four paramilitary personnel.
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in terrorism-related fatalities over the past year.
According to the Global Terrorism Index 2025, the country recorded a 45 per cent surge in such deaths, rising from 748 in 2023 to 1,081 in 2024. This makes Pakistan the second most-affected country globally in terms of terrorism-linked fatalities.
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