At least 23 killed in blast at government office in Pakistan

PESHAWAR

AA Photo

A suicide bomber attacked a government office in northwestern Pakistan on Dec. 29, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 70, officials said. 

A Pakistani Taliban faction, called Jamaat ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack on a branch of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), which issues government ID cards, in the city of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 

“A suicide bomber riding an explosives-laden motorcycle hit the Nadra office in Mardan where a large number of people were standing in queues,” police officer Naeem Khan told Reuters. 

At least 23 people were killed and about 75 were wounded, more than 25 of them critically, said Bilal Ahmad Faizi, spokesman for Rescue 1122 emergency responders. 

A Nadra employee, Mohammad Tariq, was inside when he heard the huge blast outside the office premises. 

“We are still inside the office, and the police and rescue workers are busy in their work,” he said. 

Jamaat ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban that is fighting to overthrow the government and establish hardline Islamist rule, claimed responsibility. 

Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the office was part of the “heathen Pakistan state” and therefore a legitimate target. 

“God willing, we will target all Pakistani organizations that are either directly or indirectly a part of this war,” Ehsan said in a statement. 

Eyewitness Nasir Khan, a 29-year-old laborer who received a shrapnel injury to his right leg, told AFP: “I was standing in the queue waiting for my turn as I had gone to renew my identity card when I heard someone shouting Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) and then I fell to the ground.

“The air was filled with smoke and dust and I could not see anything.” 

“When the dust settled and I stood up, it looked as though someone had butchered the people in the line, there was only blood and human flesh in the row where people were previously standing.”

The Pakistani Taliban once controlled swathes of remote territory in the northwest, but a series of military offensives that began in 2009 has pushed them back into a few pockets. 

There have been fewer militant attacks in towns and cities over the past year or so, compared with several years ago, but the Taliban remain a potent threat.