In the predawn attack in the same province, terrorists struck the colony near Warsak Dam, just north of Peshawar, and killed one Christian security guard.
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The latest wave of violence comes a day after Lieutenant General Asim Saleem Bajwa, a senior military official, said some 3,500 terrorists had been eliminated since Islamabad launched an anti-militancy operation in 2014.
Police sources said that bomber’s suicide vest contained around seven to eight kilogramme of explosives. The swift response from security teams was credited with preventing more deaths.
Mardan/Peshawar – At least 13 people including were killed and 60 others in two bomb blasts in District Courts here on Friday morning. The DPO of Mardan told The Express Tribune, “The attacker lobbed a hand grenade before exploding himself at the main gate of Mardan district courts”.
Spokesman Mushtaq Ghani says two lawyers, two police officers and three passers-by were killed in the bombing in the northwestern town of Mardan.
The Jamaatul Ahrar (JA) claimed responsibility for the attack.
Earlier today, terrorists also attacked a Christian colony in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital of Peshawar, 60 km to the west of Mardan.
Discrimination and violence against religious minorities is commonplace in Pakistan, where Muslims account for more than 90 percent of the population.
A local police official, Ijaz Ahmed Khan, said the attacker apparently wanted to target a gathering of lawyers at the bar room but was thwarted by police. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar also claimed this attack. He instructed civilians to stay away from “un-Islamic courts” and other law enforcement establishments because these places will be their next targets.
The city suffered its worst terror attack in December 2014 when Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150 people, majority children, at an army-run school.
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The Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat-ur-Ahrar has claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, in which at least one security guard was killed.
