Seven killed as Taliban attack Pakistan court

15 injured as suicide bombers strike in the country’s north

At least seven people were killed when Taliban suicide bombers attacked a court complex in northern Pakistan yesterday.

One bomber was briefly on the loose inside the complex in the Tangi area of Charsadda district but was killed by police about 20 minutes after the attack began, officials said. A second bomber was shot dead by security forces and a third died when he detonated his vest outside the main gates of the building in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The attack was claimed by the Jamaat Ul Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban, who carried out a series of apparently coordinated assaults last week that claimed more than 100 lives, including 14 people killed in a blast in Lahore.

This month the group vowed a fresh offensive on targets in Pakistan, including the judiciary.

“So far seven people have been killed and 15 wounded,” said Suhail Khalid, district police chief. A lawyer was among the dead.

The three attackers had opened fire on police and thrown grenades as they tried to battle their way into the complex, Mr Khalid said.

“Bomb disposal experts told us that each bomber was wearing 7 to 8 kilograms of explosives.” It was not clear how many people were inside at the time of the attack, but hundreds of people including lawyers, judges and citizens normally visit such district court complexes every day.

Lawyers and the judiciary are frequent targets in Pakistan. Among last week’s assaults was a bomb blast targeting a van carrying judges in Peshawar, which killed their driver.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack.