PESHAWAR: Four suicide bombers struck Pakistan in one day Wednesday, killing six people and unnerving citizens whose growing sense of security has been shaken by multiple Taliban blasts this week.
The latest assault happened in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said police, after a bomber rode a motorcycle into a van carrying several judges that was traveling through an upmarket neighborhood.
“It was a suicide attack,” senior police official Sajjad Khan told AFP.
Khan said the van driver was killed in the attack, which was claimed by the umbrella group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistani Taliban).
Five people — including at least four judges, three of them female — were injured, he added.
Earlier in the day two suicide bombers launched an assault on a government compound in the Mohmand tribal region in the northwest, killing five people and wounding seven.
One was shot dead before he could detonate the bomb while the other blew himself up at the gate of the compound, local officials said.
Later, police said, another suicide bomber blew himself up when security forces surrounded him during a search operation in the area.
Wednesday’s attacks came two days after a powerful suicide bombing rocked the Punjab provincial capital Lahore, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens more.
On Monday, two members of a bomb disposal unit were killed in Quetta, the capital of restive Balochistan province, when a device they were defusing went off. It was unclear if the Quetta bomb was related to the other attacks.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed the attacks in Lahore and Mohmand. Last week the group vowed a fresh wave of assaults on government installations.
Spokesman for both Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and the main TTP told AFP Wednesday the attacks would continue.
The deadly assaults prompted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to convene a security review with the powerful military chief and senior government officials.
They “reiterated the national resolve of complete physical and ideological annihilation of terrorism and extremism,” according to a statement from the PM’s office.
Pakistan has seen a dramatic improvement in security since its deadliest-ever extremist attack — a Pakistani Taliban assault on a school in Peshawar in 2014 which left more than 150 people dead, mostly children, and prompted a government and military crackdown.
The army intensified a long-awaited operation in the semi-autonomous tribal areas, where militants had previously operated with impunity, and the government launched a vaunted National Action Plan against extremism.
Emboldened Pakistanis are once again attending public gatherings and a sense of optimism is palpable after more than a decade of militant attacks.
But critics have repeatedly warned that the crackdown does not address the root causes of extremism, and homegrown groups like the Pakistani Taliban can still carry out spectacular assaults.
![]()
Fourth suicide bomber strikes Pakistan in one day
Fourth suicide bomber strikes Pakistan in one day
AI reshaping the battle over the narrative of Maduro’s US capture
- Since the US captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in early January, pictures and videos chronicling the events have been crowded out by those generated with artificial intelligence
CARACAS: Since the US captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in early January, pictures and videos chronicling the events have been crowded out by those generated with artificial intelligence, blurring the lines between fiction and reality.
The endless stream of content ranges from comedic memes to dramatic retellings.
In one, a courtroom illustration of Maduro in a New York courthouse springs to life and announces: “I consider myself a prisoner of war.”
In another, an AI-generated Maduro attempts to escape a US prison through an air duct, only to find himself in a courtroom with US President Donald Trump, where they dance with a judge and an FBI agent to a song by American rapper Ice Spice.
Maduro was captured alongside his wife Cilia Flores during US strikes in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on January 3.
They have since been taken to a prison in New York where they are being held on drug trafficking charges.
While some have celebrated Maduro’s ouster, the “Chavismo” movement he leads — named after his predecessor Hugo Chavez — has worked to reframe what his fall means for Venezuela’s future.
- ‘ Confuse, combat, and silence’ -
Leon Hernandez, a researcher at Andres Bello Catholic University, told AFP that with AI’s rapid creation of content, we see development of “disinformation labs” that flood social media platforms.
“There were things that circulated that were not real during the capture (of Maduro), and things that circulated which were real that generated doubt,” Hernandez said.
“That was the idea: to create confusion and generate skepticism at the base level by distorting certain elements of real things.”
The goal, he added, is for the content to overwhelm audiences so they cannot follow it.
Even legacy media such as the Venezuelan VTV television channel are in on it, with the broadcaster playing an AI-animated video narrated by a child recounting Maduro’s capture.
“AI has become the new instrument of power for autocrats to confuse, combat, and silence dissent,” said Elena Block, a professor of political communication and strategy at the University of Queensland in Australia.
- ‘Greatest threat to democracy’ -
Block pointed out the use of cartoons, specifically, had been a medium of propaganda used in both authoritarian and democratic states.
Long before his arrest, Maduro was depicted as the illustrated superhero “Super Bigote” or “Super Mustache,” donning a Superman-like suit and fighting monsters like “extremists” and the “North American empire.”
The cartoon’s popularity spawned toys that have been carried by Maduro’s supporters during rallies advocating for his return.
And much like his predecessor, Maduro continued a practice of “media domination” to stave off traditional media outlets from airing criticism of Chavismo.
“With censorship and the disappearance or weakening of news media, social media has emerged as one of the only spaces for information,” Block said.
Maduro is not the only leader to use AI propaganda — Trump has frequently posted AI-generated pictures and videos of himself with “antagonistic, aggressive, and divisive language.”
“These digital and AI tools end up trivializing politics: you don’t explain it, you diminish it,” Block said. “AI today is the greatest threat to democracy.”
The endless stream of content ranges from comedic memes to dramatic retellings.
In one, a courtroom illustration of Maduro in a New York courthouse springs to life and announces: “I consider myself a prisoner of war.”
In another, an AI-generated Maduro attempts to escape a US prison through an air duct, only to find himself in a courtroom with US President Donald Trump, where they dance with a judge and an FBI agent to a song by American rapper Ice Spice.
Maduro was captured alongside his wife Cilia Flores during US strikes in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas on January 3.
They have since been taken to a prison in New York where they are being held on drug trafficking charges.
While some have celebrated Maduro’s ouster, the “Chavismo” movement he leads — named after his predecessor Hugo Chavez — has worked to reframe what his fall means for Venezuela’s future.
- ‘ Confuse, combat, and silence’ -
Leon Hernandez, a researcher at Andres Bello Catholic University, told AFP that with AI’s rapid creation of content, we see development of “disinformation labs” that flood social media platforms.
“There were things that circulated that were not real during the capture (of Maduro), and things that circulated which were real that generated doubt,” Hernandez said.
“That was the idea: to create confusion and generate skepticism at the base level by distorting certain elements of real things.”
The goal, he added, is for the content to overwhelm audiences so they cannot follow it.
Even legacy media such as the Venezuelan VTV television channel are in on it, with the broadcaster playing an AI-animated video narrated by a child recounting Maduro’s capture.
“AI has become the new instrument of power for autocrats to confuse, combat, and silence dissent,” said Elena Block, a professor of political communication and strategy at the University of Queensland in Australia.
- ‘Greatest threat to democracy’ -
Block pointed out the use of cartoons, specifically, had been a medium of propaganda used in both authoritarian and democratic states.
Long before his arrest, Maduro was depicted as the illustrated superhero “Super Bigote” or “Super Mustache,” donning a Superman-like suit and fighting monsters like “extremists” and the “North American empire.”
The cartoon’s popularity spawned toys that have been carried by Maduro’s supporters during rallies advocating for his return.
And much like his predecessor, Maduro continued a practice of “media domination” to stave off traditional media outlets from airing criticism of Chavismo.
“With censorship and the disappearance or weakening of news media, social media has emerged as one of the only spaces for information,” Block said.
Maduro is not the only leader to use AI propaganda — Trump has frequently posted AI-generated pictures and videos of himself with “antagonistic, aggressive, and divisive language.”
“These digital and AI tools end up trivializing politics: you don’t explain it, you diminish it,” Block said. “AI today is the greatest threat to democracy.”
Latest updates
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.