PESHAWAR: Two traffic police officers were among nine people killed in a blast at a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, police said, in the latest attack to hit a region that has seen a surge in militant violence in recent years.
The explosion took place at Sarai Naurang bazaar in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, an area near Pakistan’s volatile northwestern frontier with Afghanistan where militant attacks have intensified since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
Images shared by police showed damaged storefronts, debris scattered across the market and a mangled vehicle at the site of the explosion.
District police spokesperson Rehmat Ullah Marwat told Arab News the explosion involving a motorcycle killed nine people, including “two traffic police personnel and one woman.”
“Over 23 people have been injured in the explosion, and several vehicles and shops have sustained severe damage,” he said.
Marwat said authorities were still trying to determine the intended target of the attack and whether the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber or a remotely detonated device.
The blast comes just days after a suicide attack in the nearby district of Bannu killed 15 police officers and wounded four others after militants rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the Fateh Khel police checkpost before launching an assault.
A newly formed militant faction, Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the Bannu attack. Pakistani authorities say the group is linked to the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Local residents examine damage at the site of a bomb explosion at a market in Sarai Norag in Lakki Marwat, a district in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AFP)
Pakistan says TTP and other militant groups have found safe haven in Afghanistan and are using Afghan soil to launch attacks across the border, a charge Kabul denies.
Islamabad on Monday summoned Afghanistan’s chargé d’affaires in Islamabad, Sardar Ahmad Shakeeb, and said evidence and technical intelligence indicated the Bannu attack had been orchestrated by militants operating from Afghan territory.
Afghanistan has repeatedly rejected Pakistani allegations that it shelters militants responsible for attacks inside Pakistan.
Relations between Islamabad and Kabul have deteriorated sharply over the past year amid rising cross-border violence, with the two sides engaging in some of their fiercest military clashes in years since late 2025.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Tuesday least 372 Afghan civilians have been killed during conflict with Pakistan in the first three months of this year.
More than half of the deaths were attributed to a March 16 airstrikes that hit a drug rehab facility in Kabul, UNAMA said in a report. Pakistan has denied targeting civilians.
