Suicide bombers belonging to a militant group drove two explosive-laden cars into an army compound in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday evening, triggering massive explosions and killing nine civilians, police told AFP.

“The death count now stands at nine, including three children and two women. At least 20 others were injured in both blasts,” a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

The attack took place at Bannu, according to the officer, a district in Pakistan’s turbulent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which lies adjacent to the country’s formerly self-governed tribal areas.

“The blasts created two four-foot craters, and due to their intensity, at least eight houses in the locality have been damaged,” the police official said.

“Apart from two suicides, six militants were shot dead in an exchange of fire,” he added.

An intelligence official told AFP that 12 militants had attempted to storm the compound after the suicide bombers.

The attack was claimed by the Hafiz Gul Bahadur armed group, which actively supported the Afghan Taliban in its war against the US-led NATO coalition since 2001.

“Our fighters got access to an important target and took control,” the group said in a statement, without providing further details.

The attack comes days after a suicide bomber killed six people at an Islamic religious school in Pakistan, attended by key Taliban leaders in the same province.

Similar attacks have increased in Pakistan since the Taliban authorities returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur carried out a similar attack on the same compound last July, detonating an explosive-laden vehicle against the boundary wall, killing eight Pakistani soldiers.

Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.

Islamabad accuses Kabul’s rulers of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil as they prepare to stage assaults on Pakistan, a charge the Taliban government denies.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)