Suicide bombing at northwest Pakistan checkpoint kills at least 12

Checkpoint struck in Dera Ismail Khan

At least 12 people were killed and 30 wounded in a suicide bombing at a roadside police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan on September 26, according to police accounts reported by Al Jazeera. The attack occurred near Aman Mela in the Darazinda area of Dera Ismail Khan district, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Local police said most of the dead and injured were security personnel and passersby. Officers, customs officials and forest-department personnel were among those killed, while the wounded included members of the police and customs services and at least two civilians. Rescue 1122 said crews from its Darazinda station reached the scene, provided medical help and transported injured people to hospital.

Witnesses reported hearing gunfire after the explosion. Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Islamabad said an explosives-laden vehicle was driven into the checkpoint. No group had immediately claimed responsibility at the time of the report. Suspicion focused on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly called the TTP or Pakistan Taliban, because the organization and affiliated groups have carried out repeated attacks in the region. That assessment was not a claim of responsibility and had not been confirmed.

Strategically located district

Dera Ismail Khan lies near the meeting point of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan and carries substantial goods traffic. Customs officials work alongside police at checkpoints in the district as part of efforts to prevent smuggling, making the attacked site a place where multiple government services were present. The district is also close to South Waziristan, an area that has experienced armed attacks and Pakistani military operations for more than a decade.

The bombing came amid a broader rise in militant violence in Pakistan. Recent attacks have frequently been claimed by the TTP and by the Balochistan Liberation Army, a separatist organization active mainly in neighboring Balochistan. The TTP is organizationally separate from Afghanistan’s Taliban government but is allied with it.

Pakistani officials have repeatedly accused Afghanistan’s authorities of allowing TTP members to operate from Afghan territory, an allegation Kabul denies. The checkpoint attack also followed renewed fighting on the countries’ southwestern border. Pakistan’s government said clashes two days earlier had killed at least 13 Afghan Taliban fighters after Pakistani strikes against alleged militant hideouts inside Afghanistan.

Those tensions complicate mediation efforts involving China, Türkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Pakistan had not announced an official response to the Dera Ismail Khan bombing in the initial reporting. The immediate priorities at the scene were treating the wounded, identifying the dead and securing the checkpoint area while investigators sought to determine who organized the attack.