A bomb explosion Monday in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwestern Pakistan, targeted a paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) convoy, killing at least one soldier and injuring several people. Among the wounded were six FC personnel and two civilians, according to area police officer Mohammad Arash Khan.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as TTP, claimed responsibility for an attack on a convoy near the Afghan border, claiming it ambushed the convoy with an improvised explosive device. Islamabad accuses fugitive TTP leaders and fighters of orchestrating violence in Afghanistan, citing the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. A recent attack on Pakistani security outposts in northern Chitral killed four soldiers and 12 assailants.
The Taliban in Afghanistan denies allowing anyone to use their territory against Pakistan or other countries, while the TTP leadership pledges allegiance to Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban, and the UN estimates at least 4,000 TTP militants on Afghan soil.
The Islamist Taliban took power in Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a two-decade war. Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province has seen an increase in insurgent violence, with Pakistan blaming the US military’s weapons and gear for the terrorism surge.
Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar claimed that war equipment has been handed over to TTP and Baluch insurgents, enhancing their ability to fight the Pakistani state, while the U.S. National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications denied this claim.
The equipment claimed by some Americans was transferred to the Afghan National Security Forces before their departure, and as the Taliban advanced, they abandoned it, not the United States, as they did in other parts of Afghanistan.
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